Naruto vs Zombies
by Crisis
Summary: Crossover between Naruto and Popcap's Plants vs Zombies. Rampant silliness, crazy ninja, undead hordes, and killer vegetables. What more could you want?
1. Everything Has to Start Somewhere

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the rights to Plants vs Zombies. I _do_ own a copy of the game that I can't seem to stop playing however. That is more fun with gardening than I ever thought possible.

**AN:** I am rather pleased with myself here. This is, as far as I can find, the first time anyone has written this particular crossover.

Himawari, according to what I can find, means 'sunflower'.

**FAIR WARNING:** There will be some Sasuke bashing, but really, it's his own fault for being an arrogant jerk. Well, that and I needed a target for the slapstick. Just so you know, this isn't because I hate Sasuke. I actually find him an interesting character. He's just the funniest target I had available.

I attempted to write these in order, but some could probably make sense if switched around. Oh, well. It's not like this was meant to be a truly cohesive adventure or anything.

Those who have played the game will probably notice that I didn't really stick to the plant personalities as portrayed in the Suburban Almanac. They're fun and all, but really weren't going to work for what I wanted to write.

Without further ado, let the madness commence!

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><p><strong>NARUTO VS ZOMBIES<strong>

**Chapter 1 - Everything Has to Start Somewhere  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>-'Tobi's' secret space-time dimension-<strong>

The man who called himself Madara was doing some spring cleaning. He found that it helped him clear his mind and allowed him to better focus on his plans. Every so often, he even came across something of great importance that he'd forgotten about.

This was understandable as he had a tendency sometimes to just suck up anything that looked interesting into his private space-time storage without properly checking it out first.

Like this book right here.

"Harnessing the Power of Death, A guide to the uses of necro-chakra for fun, profit, and brains by Dr. Edgar Zomboss," he read aloud to himself.

Intrigued, he opened to the table of contents.

"Chapter 1 - Making your endless army of tireless minions..."

'Madara' blinked. _How_ had he overlooked this for so long?

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure-<strong>

Naruto walked slowly back to his apartment with a huge grin on his face. Iruka had passed him! He'd even said that he respected Naruto despite the stupid fox sealed in him! Sure, he had been used in a traitorous plot by Mizuki, but he had been _recognized_. For himself! He'd even gotten a kick-ass jutsu in the process!

Absolutely _nothing_ could bring him down at this point.

When he got to his door, that claim was put to the test when he saw a huge package waiting for him. Naruto was wary of packages left for him. While he'd never gotten anything dangerous like a mail bomb, some cruel villagers liked to leave him things that, while not harmful, were no less hurtful. Once he'd gotten a package on his birthday and, thinking he'd gotten a cool present, had opened it excitedly to find nine dead baby foxes. He'd spent the day crying and digging tiny graves for each of them.

Inspecting the package, he found it was addressed to him with a return address, which took a load off his mind. He never got nasty things that were sent by post. The people who sent mean things never left anything that could identify them on what they sent. Checking the return address he read 'Bloom & Doom Seed Co.'

Naruto blinked for a bit before remembering where he'd heard that name before and his wide grin returned.

_(flashback)_

"Hey, mister! You got any more cool plants for me?" Naruto asked the shopkeeper, grinning under his goggles. He liked this particular garden shop since he always got the neatest plants here.

The shopkeeper was, in fact, one of those who held a grudge against Naruto. However, he was also a professional and would not turn away anyone who wished to spend their money unless they caused actual trouble within the shop. What he _would_ do was guide Naruto to purchasing the things that no one else wanted. Plants that were already close to dying or plants that were so odd that no one else would even look at them. And not only was the demon brat happy to pay full price for something he'd have to significantly discount to anyone else, it kept coming back for more!

This time... this time he was ready to offload something that had been sitting in the back room since his grandfather had built the shop. It was some ridiculous flower seed that supposedly needed 'solar chakra' to grow. The handy instruction booklet for describing the process was patently ludicrous and the catalog included was clearly a joke. He had a sort of grudging respect for whatever merchant had convinced an ancestor of his to purchase the damn thing as no one with half a brain would believe any of it. Which, of course, meant that the demon brat was the perfect mark to sell it to.

"Actually, I hear you've got your graduation exams coming up in a few months, right?" the shopkeeper asked with calculated casualness.

"Yep! I'm gonna pass and be a super-awesome ninja and go on to become Hokage, dattebayo!"

Urg, the demon brat even had the same kind of verbal tic as that foreign skank that was always bothering the Yondaime. It would have made perfect sense for her to consort with demons too...

He shook off that train of thought and went back to the sale. The sale always came first.

"Well, then," he said with false pleasantness, "I think it's high time I let you look at a super rare plant that only a great ninja could grow."

The demon brat's eyes widened with anticipation. Hook, line, and sinker.

"Really? Show me, show me!"

"Hold on a sec, I have to go get it."

The shopkeeper disappeared into the back and went to the dusty little box off in the corner. He opened it up and removed a seed packet with a childish picture of a smiling sunflower on it along with the aged booklet and catalog. He chuckled a bit at the catalog. If this company had ever really existed, then it had surely gone out of business by now. But if the demon brat wanted to send its money to them anyway, who was he to stop it?

The demon brat was bouncing on his feet when he returned and the shopkeeper plastered his standard pleasant smile on his face as he presented the merchandise.

"Now there's only one seed here because it's so rare, but you'll never find a better flower anywhere," he started off only to be interrupted by the demon brat who was already looking over the booklet.

"Hey, mister, what's 'solar chakra'?"

"Ah," the shopkeeper said as if he hadn't just been rudely interrupted, "solar chakra is why it takes a great ninja to grow this flower. Very few ninja are able to perform the process necessary to create solar chakra and this flower cannot grow without it. The booklet there has everything you need to know about it, but even then most ninja can't accomplish it. I'm only selling this to you because you're a very special young shinobi and I think you just might have what it takes to do this."

The shopkeeper gave himself a mental pat on the back for his ability to lie with such a straight face.

"Wow!" the demon brat said in awe. "And what's this?" it asked opening the catalog.

"That is in case you manage to grow the flower and want to order more plants direct from the supplier. You just fill out the order form here," he said helpfully, pointing out said form to the demon brat, "put the proper amount of money in an envelope, address it to the company," he continued, pointing out the address needed, "and mail it off. It might take a while to ship, but you'll get it eventually."

"This is so cool! How much?"

The shopkeeper smiled as he went to ring the purchase up. All too easy.

_-Later-_

Naruto could barely contain his excitement as he raced home to start on growing his special ninja-flower. He had gotten a decent sized pot for it and already picked out a good spot in his apartment. He planted the flower seed and put it where it would get plenty of sun and sat down to read the booklet on 'solar chakra'. Now, most ninja would have taken one look at the instructions and written the whole thing off as a gag. However, Naruto hadn't had anyone explain chakra to him in a way that would make him think the procedure described was impossible. So, naturally, he went at it with everything he had, fully confident he could succeed. As with a fair number of other things in his life, Naruto would manage to do the 'impossible' through confidence, faith, hard work, and sheer bloody-minded refusal to give up.

Naruto didn't get it down that day. The instructions said that he essentially needed to mold chakra with direct sunlight to make 'solar chakra' and by the time he started making any progress, it had started to get dark. Fortunately, he didn't have class the next day, so he was up at sunrise and starting to work after a quick breakfast.

He finally managed to get the hang of the process around lunchtime, but it took him until mid-afternoon before he managed to channel enough of it into the flower seed.

To his surprise, the seed instantly sprouted into a full-grown flower that looked exactly like the picture, smile and all. To his further astonishment, the flower proceeded to yawn.

"Good morning!" it said cheerfully with a mildly feminine voice.

"Holy crap, you can talk!" Naruto yelled out, pointing at the flower.

The flower just cocked its head curiously at him and replied, "of course I can talk! Who are you?"

Naruto blinked at the dismissal of his surprise, but introduced himself anyway. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Future Hokage!"

"A pleasure to meet you Naruto-sama! It has been so long since a gardener has bothered with plants like me." the flower said happily.

"Um... what's your name?"

"Hm?" the flower blinked. "Oh, I'm just a sunflower! We don't have names."

"Really? Why not?" No names? That was even weirder than a talking flower.

"We don't need them, silly! We know who we are," it said simply.

Naruto blinked. That... almost made sense.

"Um, would you mind if I called you Himawari-chan anyway?"

"Not at all! Naruto-sama honors me!"

"Oh, and I'm not a gardener. This is just a hobby of mine."

"If Naruto-sama is not a gardener, then what is he?"

"I'm a ninja of course!" he exclaimed before rubbing the back of his head. "Though, I haven't actually graduated yet..."

"I'm sure Naruto-sama will make an excellent ninja then!"

This... this was even cooler than he'd thought! He had just wanted another cool plant, but he'd instead gotten a new friend! One who believed in him!

_(end flashback)_

Naruto had ended up filling out _everything_ he could afford on the order form from the catalog and spending his entire savings on the purchase. He had needed to bum ramen off of Iruka until the next check came in, but he felt it was worth it. Especially now that it had finally arrived!

Opening the door, he called out, "Tadaima!" He couldn't wait to tell Himawari-chan everything!

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> I was originally intending this as a one shot, but the sheer number of little portions just kept growing. So, I have separated it out into sections, each section containing a series of little ficlets. This isn't meant to be a serious adventure, it is meant to be a fun lark into the land of silliness and I hope you will remember to read it as such.

So, please leave a review!


	2. First Strike

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or the rights to Plants vs Zombies. I _do_ own a copy of the game that has recently taken a back seat to my new copy of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Sorry Popcap, it's an awesome game, but it's not quite _Zelda_ awesome.

**AN:** Thanks to everyone who left a review! Apologies for taking so long to update, but I have three explanations. First is Exams which took place shortly after I posted the first chapter. Second is the holidays where my free time was spent with family and I was barely on my computer at all. Third is that I'm not exactly writing this in a linear fashion. I've actually been more inspired to write events that will be occurring in later chapters than I was to finish up the final holes for this one. So, yeah, don't expect regular updates from me. I simply don't write like that.

To everyone who threatened me with Maito Gai and Rock Lee's infamous 'Sunset of Youth genjutsu', please stop. Himawari's been asking to see it and I'm running out of excuses.

To **Danget the critic** personally, I will _not_ be making it so only Naruto can mold 'solar chakra'. That isn't to say that _everyone_ is going to be able to, or that everyone who can is going to be particularly _good_ at it either. What I want to do simply wouldn't work if only Naruto could pull it off. I will reveal as time goes on just what, in my view at least, 'solar chakra' is, how it works, and just what can stop a person from using it. I've already given one _humongous_ hint in the last chapter if you can spot it.

**Baron von Nobody** - You know, I often have that song playing on my computer when I write this...

Oh, and to anyone who thought that I was going to try and follow the plot of the manga, I think the first segment of this chapter should show that not only do I not intend to follow it, I intend to outright _butcher_ it. The only reason I'm going to include familiar plots is so I can show you just how far from canon I'm intending to go.

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><p><strong>NARUTO VS ZOMBIES <strong>

**Chapter 2: First Strike**

I'd have called it:** Musings on the Intelligence of Several Characters and the Related Question of Whether or Not a Zombie Can Actually Starve to Death**, but not only is that too long, it also has no bearing on the chapter.

* * *

><p><strong>-Otogakure-<strong>

Orochimaru scowled to himself as yet another scream issued forth from the halls. He had gotten a report earlier in the day that the village, though 'complex' would be a more accurate term, was under attack by a horde of unknown enemies.

The report had also mentioned that each of the enemies was individually weaker than a fresh genin so he had stopped reading there and ordered his ninja to take care of it and not bother him with the details.

The screams has been getting progressively closer in the hours since which made Orochimaru disappointed in his forces for letting themselves get overrun by such weak opponents. However, he was confident that they would not abandon their posts. He gave his shinobi three options for their service to him: Succeed in their assigned tasks, die trying, or die anyway when he discovered their failure.

The fact that the screams had entered the hallway just outside the lab he was working in was starting to distract him. If he had to get involved himself, heads were going to roll.

At last the screams stopped and he breathed a sigh of relief at finally being able to focus properly.

So when the knock came on his door, he had to restrain himself from using a jutsu to incinerate the door and whoever was behind it.

"Well?" he asked irritably. "Report! Then leave me!"

"Brraaaaiiiinnnss..." came the groaning response from the door.

Orochimaru blinked. That was easily the oddest report he'd ever been given, and he'd had the misfortune of having to file some of Jiraiya's back when he was still in Konoha. He'd made honest efforts to invent a memory bleach jutsu after reading the one involving a brothel, copious amounts of sake, and a couple of Jiraiya's summoned toads. He was jolted out of his surprise when the door started rattling like someone was fumbling with the door knob.

"Did I not say I was to remain undisturbed?" he yelled.

Needless to say, he was a bit flummoxed when his angry shout went unheeded. _None_ of his underlings were so audacious as to ignore a direct command from him.

The door opened and he was further surprised when what shambled into the room was clearly _not_ one of his underlings.

It looked to be a rotting corpse of some sort, but the features he could make out past that were so plain that the living equivalent would have been horrendously average.

"Brains?" it asked with childish curiosity to which Orochimaru responded with a kunai to its forehead.

He was thus very surprised when the figure kept advancing with no discernable discomfort despite having a kunai embedded to the hilt in its skull. His next shot was to the neck and successfully decapitated the thing which, after a second, began decomposing at an accelerated rate until the only thing on the lab floor was a pile of dirt that smelled like rotting flesh.

He had barely enough time to observe this before a second such being came through the door, practically identical to the first one. He dispatched it just as easily, but a third came, then two more. All identical in appearance. Each one was dispatched easily enough for one of his skills, but more kept coming through the door, heedless of the fallen before them. Every so often the influx of animate corpses would cease, sometimes for as long as half a minute, but it would pick right back up again. The one time he'd tried to enter the hallway, it had been so packed with the things that it was impossible for even a ninja of his caliber to break through, and the numbers just seemed to keep growing.

Orochimaru had lost count of how many he'd destroyed, first with kunai, then with simple jutsu. Unfortunately, while he had stamina and chakra reserves that would rival any of the Kages in the hidden villages, neither were inexhaustible. The tide of his opponents on the other hand seemed to be endless.

Eventually, he found himself throwing yet another fire jutsu, which seemed the most effective against his opponents, when his vision swam before him. 'No!' he cried mentally in fear and defiance, recognizing the onset of chakra exhaustion.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" was the final scream heard from Otogakure before the entire village fell silent.

'Madara' stood above the area and smiled behind his mask. _'Test successful,'_ he thought to himself.

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Training Ground 3-<strong>

Hatake Kakashi was many things. He was one of the youngest ninja to ever achieve the rank of jonin, the former student of the Yondaime Hokage, famous for his use of a doujutsu that was not originally his, copier of over a thousand jutsu in the heat of battle, the only surviving member of his genin team, the rather unwilling eternal rival of one Maito Gai, a former elite member of Konoha's ANBU, son of the legendary 'White Fang', inventor of the famed Chidori, die-hard fan of the Icha-Icha series, about as lazy as a ninja could get short of being a blood member of the Nara clan, perpetually tardy, holder of almost as many ridiculous excuses for his tardiness as he had copied jutsu (most of which he'd cribbed from his deceased teammate Uchiha Obito), a man who hid his lower face behind a mask and his left eye under his hitai-ate, and at the moment, incredibly disappointed.

The reasons for his disappointment were currently sitting, brooding, and struggling angrily against rope bindings in front of him. He'd given them the standard bell test. Don't eat breakfast; show up early; each of the three students must acquire one of the two bells to pass; they must do so while facing an elite jonin, himself, in combat; and only those with a bell get to eat. And the test was on quite a tight time limit to boot. The purpose of all that being to see if they could put aside their, admittedly considerable, differences and work together under a stressful situation. Stress was key of course as nearly anyone could work together under optimal conditions. They'd failed rather miserably. He was planning to give them a second chance right after he finished the by now familiar speech on the importance of teamwork. It was, in fact, practically the same second chance and speech that his own sensei had given to his team.

Now, he hadn't been surprised that they'd failed the initial portion. That was quite a bit more common than any of them would likely learn until they were ready to take their own genin team. The 'second chance' portion of the test was where many teams ultimately passed, and where many more invariably failed. And Kakashi had conflicting feelings about this disaster of a team.

First was Naruto, currently tied to a log for trying to sneak the lunches during the test. Kakashi was actually a bit glad for that as he had needed a good excuse to tie the boy to the log for this portion. Simply put, the boy was a mess. Oh, he was clever, fit, and had chakra reserves that were unreal for a genin, but did not have the discipline to use them with anything resembling efficiency. He had a love of ramen, plants, and wanted to be Hokage. He also thought the world of someone called 'Himawari-chan'. This was obviously a nickname as no one in the village records matched it, but neither the Hokage nor Naruto's primary academy instructor Umino Iruka knew her real identity. Naruto had attention problems out the wazoo and Kakashi wouldn't be surprised if some of his academy training had been subtly sabotaged. His taijutsu was a hodgepodge of barely-decent forms and absolutely atrocious forms, meaning he'd need to have the kid run through every kata he knew just to find out where the problem areas were. His chakra control was among the worst he'd ever seen, so he'd need to drill the kid on control exercises so that he wouldn't accidentally blow himself up using a simple campfire lighting jutsu. During the test, Naruto had come at Kakashi without even considering working with his teammates, something that Kakashi regretfully chalked up to Naruto's status as a social outcast. He'd clearly never really learned that he could, much less how to, rely on others in his age group. Kakashi had taken his time to play around with Naruto partly because he knew the other two were watching, partly because he needed to show Naruto that even grit and determination had their limits, and partly because it was just so much _fun_ to wind the kid up. Naruto was a disrespectful knucklehead for sure, but he was able to tell when he crossed the line as evidenced by the fact that when informed that the names on the stone before him were of ninja killed in the line of duty all of his hyperactivity had drained like water from a sink.

Of the three, he felt that Naruto really _needed_ the second chance he was offering, but due to his position could not really take part in grasping it.

Sakura, who sat on Naruto's left, on the other hand seemed to have it all together, at least on the surface. Sure, she was top of the class in academics and had higher than average chakra control. However, she appeared to despise one of her teammates while nearly worshiping the other through a girlhood crush. During the test, she'd left Naruto even though she'd been in a position to help him and searched for Sasuke instead only to have Kakashi take her out with a very basic genjutsu. After the test, she'd begun to panic during Kakashi's little 'hostage scenario' after their third teammate had tried to charge him in anger. Kakashi might be able to make a good Kunoichi out of her, but she'd need to get her head out of the clouds first and learn to focus and he really couldn't do that for her.

Sakura could probably use a second chance, however she was far too by-the-book to pass it on her own.

And then there was the brooding Uchiha Sasuke on Naruto's right. Sasuke was every bit the psychological mess that Naruto was a practical mess. Ever since the Uchiha massacre that had claimed every member of his clan save for himself and his older brother Itachi, who survived due to being the one doing the massacring, he was a recluse in his own village. The boy saw nothing other than his path to killing Itachi and it was hard to say how much of his loyalty was real and how much was him toeing the line so he could get the training he needed to carry out his murderous ambition of vengeance. It was true that his ability was head and shoulders above the other two, which had led to Kakashi putting in some extra effort to utterly dismantle Sasuke during the test, leaving him buried up to his neck in the ground. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the fact that Sasuke had attacked in anger when he suggested that they give up being shinobi, that hadn't put so much as a dent in his ego. Trying to break through Sasuke's superiority complex could prove dangerous given his past psychological history, but leaving it alone would likely prove to be worse in the long run. Getting through to Sasuke would likely take a miracle, and Kakashi was well aware that he was notoriously bad at miracles.

Of the three students before him, Sasuke was the only one that Kakashi wasn't sure _deserved_ the second chance. Oh, Sasuke would likely figure out the test, but Kakashi had a feeling that it would be due to figuring out the trick, and thus playing the system, rather than actually learning the lesson involved. Unfortunately, the unholy stink that would be raised in the village if he _did_ fail the last Uchiha would be legendary. Kakashi hated politics.

"Well, you seem to grasp the situation at least," he said casually, "so I'll give you one last chance. However, this time is going to be even harder since you had to have the answer spoon-fed to you rather than discover it yourselves. If you want to take this challenge, then you can eat lunch. _However_, none of you are to give any food to Naruto."

"What?" Naruto asked in confusion.

"It's punishment for trying to sneak lunch on your own," he said before addressing Sakura and Sasuke with his best 'commander's glare'. "If either of you give him any food you will immediately fail. _I am the rules here_, understood?"

With that, Kakashi vanished from their sight and took up a nice vantage point from which to observe them. If Sasuke didn't figure out the test from all of those hints he'd dropped, then he was going to have to think of something else. Naruto attempted to put up a front of being fine, but his protesting stomach was almost as loud as his voice. As he predicted, Sasuke seemed more interested in the situation than in the food itself and he had taken no more than a single bite before handing his food towards Naruto. Though Kakashi noted that he made no move to free Naruto or assist him so he could actually eat it as Sakura started protesting the gesture. He'd predicted that too. Bookish types like her tended to memorize the rules and rarely, if ever, question them. He'd need to try and cure her of that before it got her, or someone else, killed.

"Don't worry, I don't sense him near us," Sasuke reassured her, though Kakashi had a sneaking suspicion that Sasuke believed he was nearby anyway given that he'd taken no pains to lower his voice. "After lunch, we'll work together to get the bells. Without food, he'll just be in the way and that will only hurt us."

As Sakura's attitude did a complete reversal, offering her barely-touched meal to a still tied-up Naruto, Kakashi mused that he still wasn't certain if Sasuke had used the term 'us' because he was genuinely including the others or because he knew it was what Kakashi wanted to hear. The kid suppressed his emotions so much that even Kakashi had trouble getting a read on him. That could _not_ be healthy for him at this age.

When Naruto gave Sakura a heartfelt, honest, thanks, Kakashi made his move. He made it as impressive as he could, giving in to the theatrics of the moment and his desire to shake up his new highly dysfunctional team.

"YOU GUYS..." he yelled with as much anger as he could muster, fooling even Sasuke into thinking that his wrath was genuine, and making them all back off in surprise, Naruto at least tried to lean back against the log he was still tied to, as he got into their faces.

"... pass!" Kakashi finished happily, letting his false angry intent instantly shift to a more playful atmosphere, and leaving two utterly confused genin and one glaring Uchiha who did not seem happy with the prank. Darn. He'd been hoping for a full set of confused genin.

"Everyone else would just do whatever I told them like good little morons," he said over Sakura's and Naruto's confusion, and outright ignoring Sasuke's ire. "All ninja must see underneath the underneath. Those who break the rules of the ninja world are called trash. But, you know what? Those who don't take care of their comrades are lower than trash."

Both Sakura and Naruto seemed to consider that phrase to be either impressive or inspiring considering their reactions. Even Sasuke seemed to take something from his words, and Kakashi hoped that the boy wouldn't simply discard them later. With that, Hatake Kakashi dismissed the newly minted Team 7 until the next day when they would begin their training and duties in earnest.

Of course, he couldn't resist winding Naruto up one more time by pretending to leave while he was still tied to the log.

* * *

><p><strong>-The remains of Otogakure-<strong>

'Tobi' whistled to himself happily as he positively skipped through the corpse-filled halls of Orochimaru's, the _late_ Orochimaru's he cheerfully corrected himself, complex. The potential of 'necro-chakra' was far more than he'd ever dreamed of! The zombies he'd unleashed upon the traitorous Orochimaru were the weakest variety, below even some academy students individually, and they had performed beautifully. He'd have needed the chakra of a biju to produce Zetsu clones in a _fraction_ of the numbers he'd overrun the complex with using a small portion of his own ability.

This 'necro-chakra' was amazingly potent stuff. He'd initially been afraid that it would be difficult to either collect or control. Imagine his surprise when, after the initial difficulties of matching his chakra to an unknown chakra nature, it was not only easy to control, but also ridiculously common. The very _dirt_ beneath his feet was saturated with the stuff, making its gathering as easy as rolling in the mud (which was also fun he had to admit). Channeling it directly had also shown him why such a thing went unnoticed to even his highly developed doujutsu. 'Necro-chakra' was black as shadow, and easily outshone by any amount of any other kind of chakra as a result. Unchanneled in the dirt, it was effectively invisible. Even channeled into one of the zombies, he had to strain his eyes to make out any trace of the power that animated them, and even that could be written off as a trick of the light if he hadn't known what he was really looking at. It was no wonder that it had gone unnoticed by the whole world for so long. If he had to liken it to a known chakra nature, he would have to say that it was very close to Yin-natured chakra. He had to stifle a giggle at what doton users would think if they knew the untapped power that inundated the same earth they used directly.

In terms of raw power, making a basic zombie rise from the dirt would have been child's play back when he was still a child. Making a horde that could overwhelm an S-rank shinobi and his pet army was a significant effort even for him, but the zombies were self-sustaining once made. So he'd made a week of it, just to be sure he'd built up enough, before setting them on the twice-over traitor.

He paused a bit as that thought crossed his mind. Come to think of it, the force that had broken Otogakure to pieces had been a bit... _smaller_ than he'd remembered making when he'd unleashed it... 'Tobi' shrugged to himself and continued skipping cheerfully through the complex. The zombies were, ultimately, mindless and shambled about without purpose until he gave them a direction. It wasn't like some of them could have wandered off on their own, right?

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: The following day-<strong>

Team 7 was starting to realize that their sensei's tardiness was normal for him. The day they met could have been an abberration, and the day of the test could have just been one more piece of stress to get under their skins as part of the test itself. However, being late on their first official day of active duty was making the three realize that this was likely going to be the standard pattern for the foreseeable future. He had said to meet at 7:00 to go over a skills evaluation and it was now close to 10:00.

The three had been told to meet with their sensei on a small bridge just outside the main part of Konoha. Sasuke was casually leaning on the railing, Sakura was staring dreamily at him and squealing to herself about how cool he looked, and Naruto was doing warm-ups. When he'd been asked about his workout routine, and subsequently told them about how Himawari-chan had suggested it in case Kakashi was late again so he didn't fall behind in training, Sasuke had scoffed at him and Sakura had immediately taken his side and berated Naruto _and_ Himawari for being idiots.

Now, Naruto really did like Sakura, but he also didn't like how she dissed his best friend like that. As a result, he'd left Sakura alone to sort out his feelings on the matter and poured his frustrations into his workout instead.

"Yo!" came the voice of Kakashi into the scene, prompting both Naruto and Sakura to turn and yell at him for being late. "Sorry," he said, looking all too pleased with himself, "I had to stop and smell the roses. You should try it sometime."

"LIAR!" came the reply in stereo from both Naruto and Sakura.

"Anyways, now that I'm here we can begin the formal skills assessment so I know what to have you all work on in your spare time."

"What!" came the near-despairing cry from Naruto. "You're not going to train us?"

"That's not it at all Naruto," Kakashi replied, completely unruffled. "Our time together will mostly be spent either on missions or training that can only be done with all of us. Occasionally I may take time to give individual help if needed, but for the most part I expect your individual training to be done on your own time, understand?"

"...I guess so," Naruto said, still looking a bit dejected.

"Cheer up," Kakashi said, smiling so obviously that his students couldn't miss it even with so much of his face hidden, "The further you three progress together, the more advanced stuff I'll be able to teach you." Kakashi spotted Sasuke trying to hide his scowl and understood the boy had, at least partially, understood the hidden message. _'That's right Sasuke-kun, you're going to need to help your teammates get up to par if you want to keep learning.'_

"All right!" Naruto yelled enthusiastically, making Kakashi chuckle at his antics. "What are we waiting for!"

"Hold up Naruto," Kakashi said patiently. "Since you've been working out already this morning I want you to rest for a bit while I start with Sasuke and Sakura."

(A few hours later)

"Well now," Kakashi said cheerfully, "I think I've got a good idea of what each of you can do so why don't we break for lunch and I'll see you in the mission office in a couple of hours for our first mission."

Kakashi was almost as giddy with anticipation as any of his genin at the prospect of their first mission, though for much different reasons. His genin were likely imagining some awesome task that they could brag about to their peers. Kakashi on the other hand was imagining their reactions to the reality of D-rank missions. He'd gotten a brand new camera for the occasion and had remembered to bring extra film as well.

"Er, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto said uncertainly.

"Yes?"

"Um, I have one more jutsu to show you."

Naruto now had everyone's interest, even Sasuke's though he was trying not to show it.

"Well, feel free to start any time Naruto."

"Er..." Naruto said nervously, but steeled himself. His sensei had asked them to show _everything_ after all. Naruto was still nursing the bump Sakura had given him when he'd demonstrated his Oiroke no Jutsu for Kakashi-sensei. He'd gotten her back though with his super-suave Tuxedo Sasuke variant though. Normally, he'd have left Sakura out of his pranks, but he had still been feeling a bit vindictive over how she'd insulted Himawari-chan just to impress Sasuke. Not only had he rendered Sakura unconscious via swooning, he'd also gotten a rise out of Sasuke himself and apparently impressed his sensei to boot. "Well, this one takes a minute."

"I don't have anywhere pressing to be," Kakashi reassured him, earning an amused snort from his student who recalled his sensei's lateness that very morning, not to mention the days prior, and realized that 'nowhere pressing' could mean almost anything coming from Kakashi.

Resigning himself to potentially being Kakashi's latest excuse for tardiness, Naruto pulled what looked like a seed from one of his jacket pockets. He placed the seed on the ground and held his hands over it and began channeling the 'solar chakra' he'd been practicing with under Himawari-chan's guidance.

Kakashi looked interested in the process, partly because it _was_ taking a minute. He could just barely feel the chakra gathering if he concentrated which did not mesh with what Naruto had been displaying previously. He'd been running some basic unobtrusive chakra-detecting jutsu for the evaluation to get a better handle on what his genin were doing when using jutsu, and it was giving him some very interesting information right now. For most of his jutsu, Naruto's chakra had practically gushed out of him like water under pressure that had finally found an outlet. However, whatever he was doing now had him struggling to pull the chakra together, and Kakashi knew that Naruto had to be far from depleted. Whatever this jutsu was, it was already flying in the face of everything he knew about his hyperactive student.

Almost a full minute after he'd started, proving that Naruto had a good estimation of his own skill with the jutsu if nothing else, a large sunflower erupted from the ground beneath Naruto's hands with a dirt-muffled *pop*.

"Hah!" Naruto declared triumphantly. "Awesome, right?"

The reactions of the other three in the clearing were rather varied. Sakura looked like she was at war with herself regarding being honest with Naruto about how she liked the flower and not wanting to encourage his attentions by giving praise. Kakashi was rather fascinated by the way the flower's leaves were unfurling as if it was stretching upon waking from a good night's sleep. And Sasuke...

"Congratulations, dobe," Sasuke deadpanned in a manner that sounded like he was sneering condescendingly even though his face never changed expression, "you managed to grow a flower." The word 'flower' was said with the same kind of inflection reserved for the unidentifiable gross thing a person might find on the bottom of their shoe. "I suppose you finally got tired of being the most useless thing in the clearing..."

"DAMMIT TEME! YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Naruto yelled and tried to attack Sasuke.

Kakashi had to restrain the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose as he grabbed the back of Naruto's jacket and held him off the ground so as to keep him from trying to cave in the smug face of the Uchiha.

Sakura stood off to the side, now torn for a different reason. On the one hand, her past friendship with Yamanaka Ino had given her a love of flowers that hadn't left her when they'd become rivals for Sasuke's affections. Sasuke's insulting disrespect for Naruto's flower-growing jutsu cut her deeper than she really wanted to admit. On the other hand, if she disagreed with Sasuke he might come to really hate her and she'd lose any chance of ever being with him! Thus Sakura stood paralyzed with indecision on the matter.

"Naruto," Kakashi sighed out in exasperation, "we don't attack teammates outside of sparring in _any_ fashion." The last part was said with a subtle glare towards Sasuke who merely smirked and turned away. Kakashi was starting to gain an entirely new respect for Minato-sensei if Sasuke's attitude was in any way similar to what Kakashi himself had thrown around back before Obito's sacrifice.

"In any case," Kakashi said, realizing that this issue wasn't going to be resolved today even if he could dedicate the time to it, "I need to go give my evaluation of your skills to the Hokage. I'll meet you at the mission office in about two hours which should give you plenty of time for lunch and getting necessary equipment."

With that, Kakashi left. The three hours until he'd meet up with his team should be plenty to get himself lunch, make his report, grab an extra camera for embarrassing first mission photos, and catch up on some reading.

"Teme..." Naruto growled after Kakashi vanished, looking like he'd be happy to make Sasuke significantly thinner in the area around his neck.

"Can't take the facts, dobe?" the Uchiha said smugly. "That flower has no use in any part of the ninja profession. It has zero combat potential, no poisonous aspects, can't make any decent medicine, and couldn't serve as a _sub-par_ distraction even if you managed to grow it at anything resembling a respectable speed."

Naruto looked ready to try planting _Sasuke_ in the ground next to see how well he would grow covered in dirt and water, but he just managed to restrain himself. He wasn't going to disappoint Kakashi-sensei by rearranging Sasuke's face. That was neither following the rules _or_ caring for his comrades. But that smug look on Sasuke's face was really testing his resolve... Naruto glanced at Sakura who was still looking lost regarding what side to take and got an idea. He didn't have any pink hair dye currently, but that was easily remedied and breaking into Sasuke's bathroom to spike his shampoo shouldn't be too difficult for a prankster of his skills. Sakura would probably be ecstatic and ignore him to fawn over the teme even more, but that was a small price to pay for taking the Uchiha duck-butt down a peg. And even Kakashi couldn't take that as a real 'attack', right?

"You'll see teme!" he declared, pointing dramatically at Sasuke. "By the time I'm through with you, you'll be on your knees begging to be even half as awesome as I am!"

"Whatever dobe..." Sasuke said dismissively and started to wander off, leaving a fuming Naruto to go the other direction and a torn Sakura to decide which to follow.

As Sasuke walked away, Sakura made to follow him as usual. However, this time she glanced back at the flower Naruto had grown. Useless in the ninja profession or not, it was still a very pretty flower and...

...was it making faces at Sasuke's back?

Nah, surely not. Sakura was wondering just what could have brought on such a hallucination when her stomach decided to make itself known with an audible rumble.

_'Must have been due to hunger,'_ she thought to herself. Yes, that made much more sense than a flower actually making rude faces at someone. She decided then and there to quit her diet so as to avoid any more hunger-induced insanity in the future. Kami knew she'd get enough Naruto-induced insanity as it was. She'd have to exercise and train more to offset the extra calories, but didn't Sasuke often say that he wanted a strong girl to rebuild his clan with?

Nodding to herself with renewed conviction, Sakura went off to try and find the now-vanished Sasuke, or a place to eat, whichever she happened across first. She'd forgotten all about the flower incident before she'd taken even three steps.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni-<strong>

Gato chuckled sadistically to himself. He'd captured the man Kaiza and was about to have him executed as a rebel. He'd already had one of the man'd arms removed and was preparing to give his speech on how the man was a lowlife criminal working to undermine the glorious future he had planned for the country, removing his other arm as he did so, before executing him.

Gato was unconcerned about the fact that he was really working to suck the country dry until it was so desperate that the people would agree to anything. Only what he said would be put into any official record, and he could spin that whatever way he wanted when he had total control of the country. It was all in how you said it after all.

"Gato-sama!" one of his men called out, interrupting him.

"What is it?" he snapped. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Apologies Gato-sama, but we just found one of our shipping transports, the um... 'special' kind, with all hands dead. The cause of death looks like... having their brains eaten while they were still alive," the man related, looking decidedly ill.

Gato blinked. Okay, that was certainly an... odd... cause of death. However, strange causes of death or not, anyone who was attacking his interests needed to be dealt with.

He glared at Kaiza. His enjoyment of the moment had been soured and the man was no threat anymore without his arm.

"Be grateful, criminal scum," he spat at the man. "You have been granted a reprieve. I will spare your life today, but if you commit any more crimes against me, I _will_ have you executed."

With that, Gato walked off, leaving the villagers to cut the man free and treat his wounds.

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Mission Assignment Office-<strong>

The mission office was currently playing host to the fire lord's wife, Madame Shijimi, who had been pacing the room worriedly since she'd practically demanded a 'search and rescue' mission for her pet cat Tora who had run off during one of her frequent visits to the village.

This was not an uncommon sight for the ninja of the mission office, and some joked that they could organize their calendar around the event. Madame Shijimi swore by the cosmetic services of Konohagakure that were normally reserved for prepping active kunoichi for infiltration missions and it was bad form to turn away the wife of the fire lord regardless of what normal business procedures were. However, they did put their foot down in regards to relocating such services to the fire capital, and thankfully the fire lord himself backed their decision, so Madame Shijimi made regular visits to the village for hair treatments, manicures, pedicures, and so forth. She also insisted on bringing her beloved cat Tora with her on her visits despite its penchant for trying to escape from her.

The cat's position was understandable as Madame Shijimi was affectionate almost to the point of outright smothering the beast. However much a ninja of the mission office might object to how she treated her pet, none of them said anything for several reasons. One of the foremost was that correcting the fire lord's wife over how she conducted her personal affairs could be potentially dangerous for any number of political reasons and a near equal number of consequences. The other was that her cat's frequent bids for freedom helped fill up the quota of 'training missions' for rookie genin.

'Training missions' were something of an open secret of the village. The information was available to anyone who thought to inquire, but almost never volunteered otherwise. The fact was that the numerous D-rank missions that the village processed could be separated into two categories, legitimate missions and training missions. Legitimate missions had an actual client paying for them. Training missions on the other hand were for the purposes of honing the skills of various genin, particularly the fresh graduates, under the guise of performing active duty. Obviously, the mission office wanted these two categories to overlap as much as possible so that the village didn't have to arrange, and by extension pay for, the training missions itself.

Today, the Hokage himself was overseeing mission assignments during a lull in the bureaucratic paperwork the village produced. This was something he did often and the chunin who got mission office duty had long ago stopped trying to convince him that they had everything under control.

None of this really made Madame Shijimi's incessant worrying easier to take though. Thus the entire room, Hokage included, breathed a silent sigh of relief when they spotted the orange jumpsuit of Uzumaki Naruto carrying Tora, signifying that Team 7 had completed its D-ranked tracking and retrieval mission.

Tora was handed off to Madame Shijimi who nearly crushed the poor cat with her relieved hug, making several wince in sympathy and a few start preliminarily filing the request for Tora's next escape in their heads.

The Hokage reached for the list of remaining D-ranks, all of which were thankfully both of the legitimate and the training variety, and began to read them off while secretly watching the reactions of Team 7's genin members. It should be said at this point that one of the semi-guilty pleasures of the mission office was watching new genin teams go through D-ranks and taking bets on which one cracked first, when they would crack, and if they could make a decent case for getting a C-rank mission. Most of the money was on Team 7's Uzumaki Naruto breaking under the pressure first, but Team 8's Inuzuka Kiba was a close second. The most surprising thing to those who had bet on the two of them breaking was that it hadn't already happened. Though that was about to change.

"No!" protested Uzumaki Naruto. "No! No! No! NO THANK YOU! We need to do a more incredible mission! Find us a better one old man!"

The Hokage peaked up over the list he'd been reading and took in the members of Team 7. Naruto was looking ready to shoot down any contradiction to his demand; Sasuke was looking like he agreed with Naruto's sentiments but believed himself far too 'proper', or some such nonsense, to give voice to that agreement; Sakura looked like the only thing keeping her from publicly berating Naruto's outburst was her own dislike for D-rank missions; and Kakashi looked resigned to the whole affair. Though, of course, the mission office couldn't make it easy for them.

The Hokage sighed when one of the chunin on duty that day, Umino Iruka, was the one to respond to Naruto's outburst and try and bring him back in line. He really couldn't begrudge the academy teacher for jumping in and stealing one of his favorite parts of this charade as the man was almost single-handedly responsible for turning Uzumaki Naruto from a hyperactive dunce into a workable genin, a feat that was an uphill battle for numerous reasons. Fortunately, Kakashi brought Naruto under control before he and Iruka degenerated into a shouting match and it seemed Iruka was perfectly willing to let the Hokage give his typical test speech regarding how the various mission requests were divided up and then assigned.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Naruto had taken the duration of his speech to begin a conversation with himself regarding what kinds of fertilizers worked best for certain plants and what flavor of ramen he wanted for lunch. The Hokage's reaction to this proved rather conclusively that even he was not immune to having Naruto get under his skin. Kakashi looked really apologetic for the behavior of his student, but that was incidental at best.

"Geez, you're always giving lectures," Naruto said now that the Hokage had his attention again, making everyone who knew him wince as they recalled just how poorly he responded to such things. "But I'm not the same trouble-making brat you're used to anymore! I'm a proud and dedicated shinobi of Konoha who can't reach the best of his potential by staying inside these walls!"

The room went silent in shock. Naruto had actually sounded like a mature shinobi just then, one ready to take on more advanced duties. The Hokage noticed Iruka smile with pride in his former student, though he was also sure that Iruka would be holding the fact that he'd won the lion's share of the pool over the rest of the mission office for a while to come. In any case, the Hokage couldn't help but match Iruka's slight smile.

"Very well," he said, "If you want it that much, I'll give you a C-rank mission. It's the protection of a certain individual."

(Several minutes later)

The Hokage sighed as Team seven left his office with Tazuna in tow. The meeting had gone about as well as expected. The drunken Tazuna had insulted Naruto with predictable results and Kakashi had to prevent the boy from attacking his own client.

Of course, this was a form of training as well. Tazuna was not a pleasant client, which made him a good one for a genin team's first C-rank. They needed to learn early that not all clients were pleasant to deal with nor, for that matter, respectful of their profession. Better they learn this now than build up unrealistic expectations.

On the other hand, he'd been deliberately waiting to assign this particular C-rank to a genin team for other reasons. It was good fortune that it was Kakashi's team that had gotten this assignment as it put one of his best jonin on the mission as well. He'd seen more than enough people come into the mission office over the years with just enough funds to commission a mission significantly below the rank they needed, but were so desperate that they couldn't wait to scrape together anything more, and Tazuna showed all of the signs he'd come to recognize. Some of his spies out in the field had also recently reported some disturbing rumors coming out of Nami no Kuni where the man was from, and would be returning. Taken together, all of it suggested a mis-ranked mission, but there was no conclusive proof of anything that would allow him to call the man on it. It was entirely possible that his worries were from an overactive imagination and the rumors were unfounded.

Rejecting a mission on the grounds of false pretenses was a tricky proposition and could give the village a bad reputation if they misread the situation. So he'd waited to give the protection mission to a genin team led by one of his most elite jonin and included the standard code line for 'watch for anything suspicious' in the scroll he'd handed Kakashi. The jonin would understand and would be on the watch for anything that would alter the stated mission parameters.

Beyond the issues with the mission, there was the whole issue with Team 7 itself. Tradition or not, putting Naruto, the lowest in the class, on a team with Sasuke, the highest in the class, and Sakura, best academic scores, had been something of a calculated risk.

Sarutobi had, several times, watched the young Naruto and his classmates from his office during lulls in paperwork. He was well aware that, of the nine graduating students, Sasuke and Sakura were the _least_ likely to accept him for who he was. Which was precisely why he'd signed off on the team arrangement.

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew more about these nine genin than any other graduating class since he'd taken his own team once upon a time. He was well aware that Naruto had made some passing friendships with Nara Shikamaru, Akamichi Choji, and Inuzuka Kiba, even if it was only to goof off. He knew that Aburame Shino was, at worst, neutral towards the boy, as he was with most everyone in his age group and that Yamanaka Ino, while somewhat antagonistic towards him, would have given him an honest chance. He was also quite aware of Hyuuga Hinata's 'fox watching' habits and wished her nothing but the best in her efforts to drum up enough courage to speak with the object of her affections.

By contrast, Haruno Sakura was openly antagonistic towards Naruto to the point of being well past unreasonable and approaching abusive, and Uchiha Sasuke was so wrapped up in the idea of vengeance that the Hokage wouldn't really be surprised if the last Uchiha didn't even know his teammates' names.

For all practical purposes the two were, psychologically speaking, immovable objects. So, of course, the only thing that had a shot at getting through to them was an, also psychologically speaking, unstoppable force. How fortunate then that one Uzumaki Naruto fit the bill perfectly.

This was not to say that the arrangement was merely for the benefit of those two either. Oh, no. The Hokage was well aware that Naruto's desire to become Hokage was quite genuine and he had no doubts that Naruto could pull it off given even a less than even chance. Hatake Kakashi, while lazy, had the kind of background and attitude to instill the kind of selfless qualities in his charge that the job needed of a Hokage. And, even if Naruto could prove equal to the task, he would have some very hard sells among the Konoha population before he could gain enough respect to be honestly considered for the job.

So Sarutobi had put him with the two hardest sells of his age group. While it was possible that the team environment he'd thrust the boy into could crush his ambitions, if two children Naruto's age was all it took to kill his dream then the boy had never really possessed what it took in the first place. On the other hand, if Naruto could win over those two, one who openly despised him and another who outright ignored him, then Sarutobi honestly believed that there was no obstacle short of death itself that could keep Naruto from his position. Then he could hand the boy the hat himself and go back to his private competition with Oonoki as to which of them would become the first leader of a ninja village in history to be able to retire and die in their sleep of old age.

More recently there was the matter of Naruto's parting request. While certainly excited to be going on his first C-rank mission, the boy had enough presence of mind to file a mission request to have someone look after his apartment while he was gone, mostly to keep his collection of exotic plants watered and cared for. The Hokage had told him to make certain that he left a list of plant care instructions for whoever was assigned to house-sit for him and the boy had left to do just that while preparing for his mission.

Now, the boy had as much right to hire for a mission as anyone and a long-term D-rank was well within his ability to afford. While the Team 7 assignment was a calculated risk, it was a poor leader who didn't hedge his bets whenever the opportunity presented itself. If he played this just right, Naruto could end up with ties of friendship and comraderie outside his immediate team that he could fall back on in case the worst happened, and allow him to be that much stronger if the best happened.

"Team 8 reporting in," the voice of Yuuhi Kurenai cut into his thoughts, "mission successful."

"Excellent timing Yuuhi-san," he said as he smiled at the four and considered the young kunoichi of the team without looking directly at her, "I just got a mission request for a long-term D-rank within the village that I think one of your students might be interested in accepting."

Kurenai looked curious as the Hokage pulled out the mission detail and handed it purposefully to Hinata. The young Hyuuga heiress shyly accepted it and began to read it over, valliantly ignoring the rest of her team as they read over her shoulder. D-ranks were in no way classified material by definition and the only crime any of them were committing was that of rudeness, and as Hinata herself was not about to say anything the Hokage felt no need to speak up either. Hinata began to blush heavily as she read who the client was and her teammates started to grin conspiratorily. Even the perpetually stoic Shino had a smile that peaked out from behind his collar.

"I... I accept H-hokage-sama," she managed to stutter out past her embarrassment and nervousness.

_'Perfect,'_ he thought with a smile.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> So there you go. Madara makes his first move and already it seems he's skimmed the book on a few key points regarding his new toys. Then again, that assumes Dr. Zomboss was genuinely thorough with his research... No PvZ fight yet, but we should see it next chapter most likely.

Looking back at what I've written since Chapter 1, both for this and later installments, I seem to have developed a plot. The funny thing is, I'm at a loss to say when this happened.

Oh, and the sunflower Naruto grew _was_ making faces at Sasuke. Just in case you were wondering.

* * *

><p>This section is something new that I'll be including in all future chapters until I run out. Challenges to any reader who owns a copy of Plants vs Zombies. All of these will be challenges that I have both thought up myself and completed on my own as well. At this point it's an even toss up as to whether I'll run out of challenges of chapters first. So, have fun all!<p>

**Challenge:**

**Shades of '76** - During an adventure mode replay, successfully plant at least one of every type of Imitater.

_(You will need to pick a different Imitater every level that lets you pick plants as there are 40 of those, 50 levels minus 10 conveyor belt levels, and 40 different plants that can be imitated)_

* * *

><p>And a parting quote for you all:<p>

"If man is God's noblest creation... who found _that_ out?" - Mark Twain (As performed by Kurt H. Sutton)


	3. Can't Put This Off Any Longer

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or the rights to Plants vs Zombies. I _do_ own a copy of the game that has recently taken a back seat to my new copy of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Sorry Popcap, it's an awesome game, but it's not quite _Zelda_ awesome.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Let me start off by saying that it's always nice to hear from all of you.

I heard a few people mention Mokuton. Let me get this straight before debate goes any further, 'solar chakra' is _not_ Mokuton. There are similarities, yes, but there are similarities between sharks and dolphins too and they're nowhere close to being the same creature.

If anyone was put off by the info dump last chapter, just know that the whole thing was so I could have an excuse to get Hinata into Naruto's empty apartment for wacky hijinks. And I needed someone for Himawari to talk to while Naruto was off in Wave. The sunflower needs 'her' screentime after all. Anything else was setting up Team 7 dynamics so I can screw with it better.

As for those who mentioned multiple plants in Naruto's apartment... who said he's been practicing growing his plants there? Some people may have spotted some odd plants in Konoha's backwoods. :p

Besides, Naruto's not _quite_ clueless enough to commission a house-sitter and not inform his plants.

...Wow, I just thought of how that might sound out of context...

To **Sefiriot** - To answer your question... not exactly. Belief isn't what triggers the process, but disbelief can block it. It is my experience that people, understandably, often confuse the two. This has basis in historical fact as well. So many scientific and technological advances didn't occur until people stopped declaring them impossible and actually started trying to find out if they were or not. Naruto lacks the disbelief, so he has no mental block to hinder him, simple as that. As for what solar chakra is, that will be answered next chapter, and by a source you probably won't expect. ;)

And besides, while I may not have made it clear in the last chapter, the mission is strictly single person. Hinata's the only one house-sitting for Naruto. Poor girl's mind is going to run away with her before the chapter's over.

Pretty much all the plants will talk, but Himawari is going to be the only one I take the trouble to individualize. This is so I don't have to create thousands of individual characters for every single plant grown. Himawari is one of two 'special' plants that I will introduce over the course of the story (special being defined as having individual characterization), and 'she' is pretty much only special due to being Naruto's 'familiar'. Don't worry about spotting the other one, it will be _very_ obvious.

Honestly, a much better question you should be asking is: How did Himawari-chan go from seed to having perfect command of Naruto's primary language?

* * *

><p><strong>NARUTO VS ZOMBIES <strong>

**Chapter 3: Can't Put This Off Any Longer**

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Yamanaka Flower Shop-<strong>

Ino tidied up some spilled dirt in the shop. Nothing had actually fallen over, but in a flower shop like this the dirt just seemed to migrate out of the pots and to the floor at times. She wished that Sakura would come back and break up the monotony of the slow period, but she had said that she needed to get ready for a C-rank mission and couldn't stay. Sakura! On a C-rank! Ino would weep at the injustice of it all, but she had to admit that D-ranks probably weren't challenging Sasuke-kun enough.

As she continued working, her mind drifted to a conversation she'd had with Sakura shortly after graduation.

(Flashback)

"I'm serious Ino-pig! Naruto grew a huge sunflower right out of the ground like that!" Sakura declared, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

"Alright, alright," Ino capitulated, "I believe you. What did Sasuke-kun say about it?"

Sakura sighed heavily, apparently not happy about what she was going to say. "He says it wouldn't be useful in the field at all, and I have to agree with him."

(End flashback)

Sakura might have agreed with Sasuke-kun that it was a useless skill, but Ino... wasn't so certain. She valued Sasuke's opinion as much as the next girl her age group, but she had to be honest with herself and admit that the guy knew next to nothing about plants. She'd worked in her family's flower shop since she was old enough to carry stuff without dropping it and thus knew more than most ninja on the subject. Heck, one of her first chakra exercises that she learned outside the academy was how to stimulate the flowers in the shop with her chakra to keep them healthy for extended periods of time and even accelerate their growth a bit. She knew exactly how plants tended to react to ordinary chakra manipulation and what Naruto pulled off wasn't it. She couldn't make a flower bloom from a seed in an instant. Heck, neither of her parents could either. Nor could any member of her extended family that ever set foot in the shop. If they could, business would be so much easier.

Many places had ninjutsu that could empower existing materials not strictly covered by the five common chakra natures. Classes in the academy on common ninjutsu from other nations told of many such things, such as ice ninjutsu made for manipulating pre-existing frozen water in the cold environment of snow country rather than making it with the ninja's own chakra.

Even plants weren't exempt from such kinds of ninjutsu. Heck, the shinobi library had a few volumes on the subject that Ino had perused in her search for Naruto's mysterious flower-growing jutsu. She'd located an actual 'Konohagakure no Jutsu' for drawing a flurry of leaves from surrounding trees to confound a foe and something called '_ Leaf Arrowhead' that could turn a flurry of leaves into a barrage of shuriken-like projectiles. It was too bad that some unthinking person had vandalized part of the name. It was doubly bad that she didn't yet have the control to pull off the jutsu herself either.

She'd even located a volume that contained the same kinds of plant-stimulating jutsu that her family used to keep the flowers in the shop bright and healthy. However, it didn't contain even a mention of something that could grow a flower to full bloom from a freshly-planted seed in an instant. Such feats were the province of advanced bloodlines it seemed.

So she'd then looked up what little the library had regarding the abilities of Mokuton, knowing full well that any real detail would be in the Senju clan archives and not available to her. What the library's material could say for certain was that Mokuton worked specifically on wood and could only affect plants that contained wood, such as trees.

But sunflowers were _not_ wood plants. Which meant that Naruto wasn't using Mokuton jutsu.

So what _was_ it that Naruto was doing?

* * *

><p><strong>-Next Morning: Streets of Konohagakure-<strong>

Hinata Strolled in the direction of Naruto's apartment to begin her solo mission. She had the key that Hokage-sama had given her and fully intended to get an early start. She had to familiarize herself with the instructions Naruto-kun had left and see to getting any materials that he might have forgotten to stock up on.

If only she could get her blushing under control. Okay, she was going to go into Naruto's apartment. His home! By herself! Hinata paused to take a few deep breaths and remind herself that Naruto-kun was _not_ going to be there. Nothing would happen between them. He wouldn't be there to see her have a shy, blushing breakdown over being in his presence. So there was no need to drive herself to one in his absence. Maybe if she could get used to being in his apartment, she could tell him how she felt. And then, maybe...

Now, Hinata wasn't ignorant of what males and females in a relationship might possibly do with each other when alone. The ninja academy wasn't about to let _anyone_ graduate without them being fully aware of such things, much less a female ninja. Thus the fantasies of a kunoichi her age were invariably much 'steamier' than those of most civilian girls a few years her senior. She was pretty certain, at least, that the fantasies of civilian girls didn't usually involve massage oils or creative use of academy rope techniques.

She also knew Naruto had a healthy interest in the female body if his 'Oiroke no Jutsu' was any indication. It was far too accurate for anyone who wasn't _very_ familiar with the female body to produce.

_'N-Naruto-kun... Take th-this! Oiroke no Jutsu!'_ Hinata violently shook the image of her using Naruto-kun's own jutsu on him from her mind. If she allowed herself to indulge in that fantasy, she'd never get the mission done. Maybe later...

Fortunately, she'd managed to make it to Naruto-kun's apartment despite letting her mind wander like that. She took out the spare key the Hokage had given her, for while any ninja worth their hitai-ate could pick a lock it was considered very rude to do so, and opened the door.

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Hokage's Office-<strong>

The Hokage was once again perusing a rather interesting report regarding an unexpected skill in one of his ninjas. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised when Kakashi had come in to inform him of Naruto's surprise mystery ability. On the other hand, if he hadn't been then he couldn't rightly claim that the boy was one surprise after another. And no matter how many times he went over this report, it never seemed to lose its shocking qualities.

Kakashi had told him about how Naruto had planted a seed, concentrated for a minute, and then grown a rather large sunflower to full bloom in an instant. Sarutobi Hiruzen had been so shocked that he likely wouldn't have noticed the second coming of the Rikudo Sennin if the man had performed one of Jiraiya's dances while naked on his desk. _Any_ jutsu that could influence a living organism that strongly was more precious than gold.

Even more precious was that it could be done without a bloodline. He knew that Naruto possessed no bloodline beyond the Uzumaki clan's chakra potency. He'd had the boy rather thoroughly tested when he was younger just to be sure. He also knew that no shinobi, active or otherwise, in the village knew such a technique. The ability to grow plants instantly with chakra, no bloodline needed, wasn't something that could be kept a secret for long in a ninja village. Specific jutsu, maybe, but not this. Nor was it in any of the jutsu libraries in Konoha, not even the Hokage's personal library.

The Hokage was certain this skill had something to do with the mysterious Himawari-chan that Naruto was so fond of, but he was curious as to _how_. He'd dearly like to arrange a meeting with Himawari, but Naruto had, quite politely, informed the Hokage that she couldn't come on her own and that he didn't really trust anyone else to move her. He'd attempted to pop by Naruto's apartment to meet her while the boy was out, but he never found any evidence of another person living there even though all of Naruto's information on Himawari suggested that she did indeed live with him. The girl was, in essence, a phantom that somehow managed to live in the village without the direct knowledge of anyone other than Naruto.

All of this pointed to some rather curious circumstances, but the Hokage felt certain that he was missing some important context. Were he to take everything Naruto said about the mystery girl seriously, he'd have to arrest the civilian garden shop owner for slave trafficking in the village. And the very idea that a civilian could get away with such a thing in the middle of a ninja village without him knowing about it made the _least_ amount of sense out of anything he knew related to the girl.

In all honesty, he'd have written the girl off as an imaginary friend of Naruto's except for the fact that she couldn't be. Imaginary friends didn't teach ninjutsu after all, and Himawari was the _only_ person in the village who could have taught Naruto that technique.

If only he could _talk_ to her...

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Naruto's Apartment-<strong>

Hinata carefully closed the door to Naruto's apartment behind her as she entered and looked around. It was quite small compared to what she was used to, but then again she was used to living in a clan complex that was almost palatial in comparison to the rest of the village. The apartment was mostly clean, she was certain that Naruto was polite enough to clean up before hiring a house-sitter, but she could tell that is was in need of some basic maintenance and repair. Most of the furniture, while serviceable, was the same way. It looked like Naruto probably got all of it secondhand, at best, and had to choose based on functionality rather than aesthetics.

Despite all of this, Hinata honestly felt more comfortable in this apartment than she often did in her own home. Here there were no expectations to be something she wasn't or to meet standards that were beyond her ability. Here there was no pressure to be Hyuga, leaving just Hinata. And it felt like she'd taken off a weight she didn't know she was carrying.

Taking a deep breath to savor the strange, yet pleasant, feeling, Hinata looked around again. There were plants everywhere! Well, okay, not _everywhere_. It wasn't like Naruto had transformed his apartment into a makeshift jungle. But the first room alone had no less than six different plants in it, and she had no idea what _any_ of them were.

Walking over to Naruto's refrigerator, she spotted the list of instructions. Naruto had obviously taken a lot of care in writing them, for she could easily spot the hard purposeful lines in the words. Reading a few names, she realized quickly that she was going to need to pay a visit to a garden shop, or maybe even the library, so she would know what each of the plants looked like. As it was, she couldn't match the plant's appearance to the name, which would make it hard to perform the mission properly.

Fortunately, the instructions weren't difficult. Not much more than a watering schedule with proper amounts and placements for appropriate levels of sunlight. Even if the one, the 'ferocactus echidne', listed an unusually low amount of water needed. At the bottom however was an underlined name, "Himawari-chan", that also included instructions to _talk_ to the plant, claiming this was very important. It even included a list of suggested subjects such as home life and ninja training.

Very curious now, Hinata began to look in the other rooms to see if she could identify this particular plant. She wanted to know what Naruto's prize looked like. When she got to Naruto's bedroom, and managed to stop hyperventilating at the images that produced in her mind, she spotted what had to be "Himawari-chan".

It was a truly large sunflower, the actual flower being easily as wide as a human head, placed in a pot on the windowsill next to Naruto's bed. The flower was currently turned out from the room, but it was still very impressive to look at. It might not have been a very exotic plant, but Hinata had to admit as she approached it that it must have taken a great deal of careful effort on Naruto's part to grow it so large. She vowed that she would put just as much effort into caring for Naruto's prize flower as he himself must have.

"So you must be 'Himawari-chan' then, right?" Hinata said gently to the large sunflower in Naruto-kun's window. She felt a little silly for talking to a plant, but Naruto had said in his instructions that it was very important, so she would speak with the flower as much as she could. And of course politeness dictated that she introduce herself. "I'm Hinata, a former classmate of Naruto-kun's and one of his ninja comrades. Naruto-kun must really like you, so I'll be sure to take very good care of you while he's away."

"I thank you for your kindness Hinata-sama! Truly you must be a great ninja like Naruto-sama to be so dedicated and caring."

Hinata froze in shock. The flower... had just spoken to her! It had moved to face her, showing her it had a face! She had seen its mouth move and everything! She immediately put her hands into the sign Kurenai-sensei had drilled into her team and tried to dispel the genjutsu.

"Are you alright?" the sunflower asked her with concern. "You're changing color..."

Hinata could practically feel the blood draining from her face and could only imagine how pale she looked. No change from dispelling... In desperation, she activated her Byakugan and tried to spot what was going on.

"Oh wow! That's a neat trick!" the sunflower exclaimed upon seeing how Hinata's eyes changed and clapped cheerfully with its leaves.

Hinata went even further into shock when the only oddity she could see was the bright yellow glow of the sunflower's _highly developed_ chakra system. That meant that this was real. The flower was really talking to her. Naruto-kun had a talking flower...

*Thump*

"Um... are you OK?" the sunflower asked with concern, becoming very worried when the girl who had just collapsed didn't respond. "Oh no! I killed one of Naruto-sama's friends!" the flower panicked.

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Hokage's Office-<strong>

The Hokage was a little surprised to see Kurenai in his office today. She'd given her team the day off so that Hinata could familiarize herself with her new mission sans distractions and plan a team schedule for the duration.

"Greetings Kurenai-san," The Hokage said pleasantly. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

"I'm afraid I've been having some doubts about the mission Hinata accepted yesterday," she admitted.

"Really?" he asked. "You seemed quite eager for her to accept while you were reading the mission description over her shoulder."

"I know Hokage-sama," Kurenai apologized, blushing a bit at being reminded of her rudeness, "but I had cause to think further on the matter and I realized that Hinata's clan might react very poorly to this."

"As influential as the Hyuga clan might be," the Hokage said, "they have no say in who can request a mission outside their own walls. Nor do they have any power over who is assigned that mission, even if it may be a member of their clan. They can complain until the world ends, but Naruto filed an official mission request, Hinata accepted it, and I cleared the assignment. There is nothing they can do about it and if they tried to punish Hinata over it, I could punish them rather severely in turn for interfering in official village business. In all honesty, there is very little that can go wrong with this in my opinion. Best case scenario, I live long enough that I can perform another wedding of two fine upstanding shinobi. Worst case scenario, nothing changes. The most likely scenario, particularly in the short term, is that they become good friends and comrades, something I don't believe either of them would object to in the slightest."

Kurenai, who had to fight down a smile caused by the imagery brought up by Hokage's stated 'best case scenario', countered with her own statement. "But what if the Hyuuga clan elders decide to get involved?"

The Hokage smiled in the way of people who are anticipating a rare treat. "Then I get to once more enjoy the sight of an uptight clan elder trying to swallow their own tongue after being informed of some select 'need to know' information."

Kurenai almost asked what that might be, but stopped herself. If the Hokage thought you were someone who needed to know such information, he would tell you. Otherwise, unless it was about you specifically, you were usually better off not inquiring.

And, besides, if his confidence was as well-founded as he thought, then the Hokage was right. What could really go wrong?

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Naruto's Apartment-<strong>

_Hinata stood there in the street, staring across at the Pink Witch Sakura. The witch was dressed as usual in a tacky barely-decent full-body pink 'outfit' that was made of some material that was so thin and clung so close to her body that it may as well have been painted on, the witch's symbol upon the part that masqueraded as a belt buckle. Sakura's uniformly pink makeup; lipstick, eyeshadow, nail polish, and mascara; made her look like a streetwalker despite any efforts to render it tasteful. Upon her finger was the mystical pink ring that gave her the energy manipulation powers that rendered her dangerous._

_At the witch's side stood her pet demon, Uchihagumo. The creature was a massive 12-foot tall spider demon with the torso of a man, eight blood-red eyes containing three tomoe each, and the most ridiculous duck-butt hairstyle._

_Magically restrained at Sakura's feet was Hinata's love, the Kitsune Hanyou Naruto, son of the Nine-tailed megitsune head of the kitsunes' Uzumaki clan, and the fourth head of the forest monk order. Beside her love was the legendary sword 'Hokage', forged from one of his mother's fangs and blessed with his father's holy powers, and currently under a diabolical seal of the witch's own design that kept it from manifesting its immense powers to protect its master._

_Hinata herself was garbed in the sheer silk uniform of a forest priestess, cut in a way that only showed off the embarrassingly generous curves of her body, marking her a member of the same order as Naruto's father, and her pale eyes were proof that she hailed from a long line of gifted seers. Her long indigo hair was tied back with a bright orange bow to keep it from entangling her in her duties._

_Beside Hinata lay the unconscious forms of two of her and Naruto's friends; Kiba, the youngest son of the werewolf matriarch; and Shino, the current heir to the insect whisperers._

_Behind her lay three more of their friends; Choji, a young armored sumotori warrior from the Goron Dojo; Shikamaru, a drow ranger equally infamous for both his laziness and his shadow powers; and finally Ino, a mutant telepath as well as a geisha-in-training who had fled from the cruel system that conspired to sell the bodies of young girls to anyone with the ability to pay._

_Hinata had to admit that the Pink Witch's trap had been well laid and perfectly executed, but she was not about to lay down and admit defeat yet._

_"Give up little priestess," the witch said cruelly, "your love has fallen and your pathetic allies lay strewn around you. You, the weakest of them all, are the only one left and you have not the power to stop us. Give in and I shall let you live as my plaything."_

_"I shall never give in to the likes of you!" Hinata yelled defiantly as she fingered the fox locket that had been a gift from her love. He'd told her than his mother and father had placed some powerful magics in the locket that would aid her in a time of need, but she'd never had to use that power before._

_The witch and her pet demon laughed at her. "What can you possibly do, little priestess?"_

_"This," Hinata stated as evenly as she could as she held the fox locket above her head and spoke the phrase to trigger its magic._

_"Vixen Crystal Power... MAKE UP!"_

_With the trigger phrase, Hinata was wrapped in the magic of the locket and her priestess clothes dissolved in preparation of her empowerment. This also had the side effect of giving her love a rather obvious nosebleed, something which embarrassed and pleased her at the same time. The magic flared from the base of her spine and formed nine streamers behind her. One wrapped around her torso to form a sleeveless white leotard, two more wrapped around her legs and became thigh-high indigo high-heeled boots to match her hair, another two wrapped her arms and became shoulder-length white silk gloves, the next wrapped around her neck to form an indigo sailor kerchief and her fox locket settled over her chest to clasp it in place while another wrapped around her waist to form an indigo micro-skirt that barely went past her hips, yet another washed over her face leaving it painted with makeup fit for a princess despite the obviously orange lipstick and coiled around her head to become a golden tiara with an orange spiral jewel in the center, and the last solidified into a white-tipped indigo fox tail sprouting from the base of her spine through the leotard as her human ears moved to the top of her head and morphed into indigo fox ears to complete the transformation._

_"Oh, what is this?" the pink witch asked in amusement._

_"This is the power of Love and Justice," the transformed Hinata stated. "This is a power that a jealous self-centered person like yourself could never comprehend. You who consort with creatures born of hatred, malice, and jealously and seek to harm any who would dare to find happiness and aid others. In the name of Love, Justice, and future hot foxy Naruto on Hinata action, I, Sailor Vixen, will punish you!"_

_"You?" the pink witch screeched incredulously. "Punish me? You need to _Wake up! _girl."_

_"I shall never give in to your foul evil! Not while I still draw breath!"_

"Please, wake up! _you simpering little fool, _Please don't be dead! _You do not have the power to rescue your precious_ Naruto-sama would be so mad at me if I really killed one of his friends!"

"Huh?" Hinata said in confusion as her eyes fluttered open. The pink witch didn't generally sound like that...

"Oh, good! You're alive!"

"Who?" Hinata looked around in confusion to spot the voice.

"I was so worried when you collapsed!"

Hinata focused on the voice and looked straight at the sunflower sitting in the window above her. The flower with a face. And talking to her. The events leading to her position on the floor came back to her in a rush.

"Eep!" she squeaked, but managed to keep herself from fainting again.

"Are you OK?" the sunflower, Himawari, asked.

"I-I-I-I-I-I'm f-fine," Hinata managed to stutter out. This was more surreal than even Kurenai-sensei's live-chakra genjutsu exercises.

"Are you sure?" Himawari didn't look convinced which only served to weird Hinata out more. She was _not_ used to flowers having facial expressions.

Hinata nodded rapidly, not entirely trusting her voice, as she tried to get her emotions under control. This was a mission. Don't let emotions interfere with the mission. Recognize them, accept them, and then set them aside.

"Oh, good!" Himawari said happily. "I was really scared when you fell over! I don't know how humans work, so I had no idea if you were alright or not. Anyway, Naruto-sama told me someone would be coming by, and here you are! I'm really glad to finally meet one of Naruto-sama's friends!"

"I..." Hinata paused, trying to take in everything. "I'm afraid I'm n-not really Naruto-kun's friend. I... I'm s-sorry..."

"Why aren't you friends?" Himawari asked, confused. "Naruto-sama loves making friends! I'm sure he'd be your friend too if you asked!"

"I-I can never talk to Naruto-kun about being friends..." Hinata admitted sadly.

"Why?"

"A-ano?"

"Why haven't you talked to Naruto about being his friend?"

"I," Hinata started, "I keep trying to talk to him, b-but I always get so flustered that the words stick in my throat and I can't say anything..."

"Huh?" Himawari sounded confused. "Why would you do that?"

"Well, you see, I... l-like Naruto-kun," Hinata said with a blush.

Himawari looked at the reddening face of Hinata with curiosity. "Well, of course! What's not to like?"

"Um... That's not quite what I meant. Y-you see, I like him in _that_ way."

"What way is that way?" Himawari asked, confused. Humans were so _odd_.

Hinata turned even redder, a process that seemed to fascinate the plant, before responding. "I-it means I like him in a, ah, r-romantic fashion."

"...I don't get it," Himawari said simply.

Now, Hinata had spent her academy years crushing hard on Uzumaki Naruto, but her shyness had prevented her from ever approaching him as even a friend. And while her sensei and teammates were well aware of her crush, she had never gotten the courage to discuss it with any of them, much less ask for advice in how to approach the object of her affections. However, the somewhat surreal task of trying to explain the concept of human romance to a flower slowly and surely accomplished what nothing else was able to at that time. It gave Hinata just enough confidence in herself to believe that she really _could_ talk to Naruto when he got back.

After all, it couldn't _possibly_ be more mortifying than what she'd discussed with Himawari.

* * *

><p><strong>-Several days later: Nami no Kuni-<strong>

Kakashi mused that this mission could, perhaps, get more complicated, but he had to admit that there was an increasingly shorter list of ways that was possible. To start off with, his team had been ambushed not even a day's travel, by their client's pace even, from Konoha. The group had been set upon by the infamous 'Demon Brothers', a pair of nukenin, ninja who had abandoned or betrayed their village, from Kirigakure. They had shown poor judgement in disguising themselves as a puddle after a period with no rain, but solid tactical sense in going after him first with their bladed chain and he'd allowed it to look like they had succeeded.

His purpose was two-fold. One was to discover who they were after. While the client was the obvious target for attack, as he had been the one to request protection, the group did include Sasuke, easily identifiable as the 'last Uchiha' by his insistence of wearing his clan symbol everywhere he went, and Naruto, who was easily just as high-value a target even though the reasons tended to be a great deal more classified. Security leaks were a fact in the ninja world after all and even the most well guarded information had a chance of finding its way into the wrong hands. The second reason was that he wanted to see how his team reacted in this situation.

The entire team froze in shock at his apparent demise, which was completely understandable, and the Demon Brothers went after Naruto next. Kakashi had a moment of sheer terror right then, both because Naruto was so shocked at the time that he was incapable of moving, much less defending himself, and because Kakashi thought the nightmare scenario of Naruto's 'classified information' being leaked had become reality.

Fortunately, Sasuke had recovered, also no surprise as he had seen death before and had thus been able to retain himself enough to notice the substitution, and halted their attack on Naruto. The Demon Brothers were forced to disengage their chain weapon as a result. It was then that one had engaged Naruto to occupy him, and the other had gone after Tazuna directly. Naruto had recovered enough to defend himself and Sakura had also recovered from her shock and moved to defend the client. Sasuke, given an option of aiding only one teammate, went to Sakura's help as Naruto took a minor wound from an unfortunately poisoned weapon. It was then that Kakashi decided he'd seen enough and intervened, subduing both assailants in an instant.

Long story short, he'd confronted Tazuna about being targeted by ninja, listened to his genin insist on continuing the mission despite the danger, and watched Naruto stab the back of his hand to both bleed the poison and swear an oath to never freeze up like that again. His genin were crazy, that was all there was to it. And he had to be at least as crazy for listening to them. Ah, well. A little insanity went a long way to keeping a ninja's mind in one piece. Sasuke could probably stand a little himself, all that brooding repression could not be good for him.

Tazuna had willingly told them about the man targeting him for death, complete with complimentary guilt trip, one Gato of Gato Shipping Corporation. The man was apparently using his strongarmed monopoly of Nami's ports and shipping business to starve the country into submission, and the massive bridge that Tazuna was building was the only alternative for commerce in the works, and the only threat to Gato's power. On the potential upside, Gato had recently been distracted by something or other. Tazuna couldn't say what, but whatever it was had Gato in a really bad mood. So Kakashi had to keep an eye out for the possibility of a mystery third party of unknown origin, strength, of affiliation. He hated surprise factors, even when he'd been forewarned. Heck, _especially_ when he'd been forewarned. Surprises could happen any time, but when you're trying to deliberately expect the unexpected it can really make a ninja jumpy and more prone to tiring from keeping up their hyper-alert state.

On the downside, Gato had plenty of money with which to hire even stronger nukenin to send after Tazuna. Nukenin like Zabuza. Zabuza who had incidentally just intercepted their team, made Kakashi reveal his normally covered Sharingan eye that he'd inherited from his deceased teammate Uchiha Obito, scared his team senseless, drawn him into a surprisingly even duel, and then tricked him into a water prison jutsu. A water prison that he could feel siphoning off some of his chakra. Zabuza was currently sending some Mizu Bunshin after Tazuna that his team was doing their best to stall. He was rather impressed that they seemed to be taking his 'caring for comrades' lesson so well to heart, but he honestly thought that this was not a good time for it. Some enterprising ninja with a gambling addiction had once coined the phrase: 'Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to fight, know when to run.' In Kakashi's expert opinion, this certainly counted as a 'run' situation. So of course his genin were opting to 'fight'.

Kakashi might have been surprised that Zabuza was feeling nearly as aggravated as he was. His fight with Kakashi had been quite invigorating and enjoyable, but the way the orange-wearing brat was talking back to a seasoned assassin like him was starting to grate his nerves. So he'd tried to scare the brat senseless, another of his favorite pastimes, with the little story of Kiri's graduation ritual that he'd put an end to. It was meant to be a fight to the death between students, the survivor becoming a Kiri shinobi. A really piss-poor method in his opinion. Really, halving your combat-capable population just to see who makes the cut? But of course no one would listen to him. He hadn't even been _in_ the graduating class yet, much less anyone 'important'. So he'd just taken the 'exam' to its logical conclusion and slaughtered the whole class. Of course, it seemed like even his well-practiced 'I love killing' act hadn't been enough to shake the kids' resolve. Which meant that he was going to have to kill them.

He'd learned to ignore his conscience long ago, something often necessary for his line of work. He _hadn't_ yet learned to ignore the opinion of his apprentice Haku. And unfortunately the two had an annoying tendency to agree with one another. Haku was going to be giving him that _look_ again. The one that actually managed to make him feel guilty.

He was shaken out of his musings by two things. The first was the brats engaging his Mizu Bunshin, the orange one with more Kage-bunshin than he'd ever seen anyone below jonin level manage. The second was the rather distinct feeling of hands on his leg. Hands in desperate need of a good wash despite being soaking wet at that.

_'What the...?'_ he thought in surprise and looked down at his leg.

What he saw caused him to freeze up. Zabuza had seen many shocking things during his career. What appeared to be an animate corpse reaching out of the water to grab his leg and prepare to take a bite out of it as casual as if it was merely sitting down to dinner blew them all right out of the water. He was so shocked that he was unable to move when it bit down with a force that was every bit as shocking as its appearance.

"AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!" Zabuza cried out in pain as the corpse's teeth bit through his calf-muscle and straight to the bone. His reflexive action thankfully tore his leg free and launched the thing straight into his Mizu Bunshin, unfortunately dispelling the water-clone. He had also apparently let Kakashi out, but the Copy-nin was staring at the corpse thing in just as much shock as he was as it slowly stood up, seemingly unimpeded by the fact that its jaw was half-disconnected from its skull, and made for the nearest person. Which happened to be the orange-wearing brat.

"HOLY CRAP!" the boy screamed, the first person to recover from the shock of the thing's appearance. "THEY'RE REAL!"

Zabuza reluctantly felt a glimmer of respect for the brat as he had to shift his weight to his uninjured leg since the water he was standing on made leaning on his sword like a makeshift crutch a bad idea. The boy apparently knew what this thing was despite never seeing it before either while he, an elite assassin, had no earthly clue. The ability to gain information was often more precious that the ability to kill in this line of work after all. Even better was that his scream had shaken his teammates out of their shock and they peppered the thing with kunai until it fell apart completely and dissolved into foul-smelling dirt. Some ninjutsu construct then?

Zabuza was cut from his musings when what appeared to be a young Kiri hunter-nin landed next to him. The 'hunter-nin' was really his apprentice Haku and was instructed to stay behind as a failsafe if things started to go badly. For his apprentice to reveal himself right then, particularly since he obviously wasn't here for the charade, was _not_ a good sign.

"Zabuza-sama," Haku stated, removing any possibility from the Konoha-nin's minds that he might not be affiliated with the Kiri nukenin, "we're surrounded."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> O.o Apparently Hinata dreams in crack-fic. I honestly have no idea where that came from. It just appeared one day while I was typing out the sequence...

Before anyone asks: No, Zabuza will not turn into a zombie. Zombie bites in this universe do not transform the victim into another zombie. That doesn't mean they're harmless though. I imagine that zombie bites would be plenty dangerous without being able to turn you into one. Infectious bites, as in bites that carry diseases in them, are often a result of rotting meat caught between the biter's teeth and are incredibly hazardous to a person's health if left untreated. I suspect that the biter being _made_ of rotting flesh would turn this up to eleven.

'Konohagakure no Jutsu' is based on a technique used by Rock Lee of all people (though he uses swords instead of chakra as the catalyst) in Hinata0321's fic 'Journey of the Three Failures'.

Anyone who can fill in the blank word for the technique Ino found _and_ correctly identify where the name came from gets a cookie.

And next time you all _finally_ get some PvZ action! I know you've been waiting for it... ;)

* * *

><p><strong>Challenge:<strong>

**Silver Star** - Complete 'Seeing Stars' using Imitater Starfruits instead of normal ones.

* * *

><p>And my parting shot for the day, a question regarding cause and effect. Don't answer (please), just read and think upon it.<p>

Somewhere out there is a man with a gorgeous red-headed wife whom he loves wholeheartedly. If asked what he loves about her, he will merely smile and say he's partial to redheads.

The question is this: Did his love for his wife stem from his partialness towards redheads or did his partialness towards redheads stem from his love for his wife?


	4. There's a Zombie in Your CRank

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto or the rights to Plants vs Zombies. I _do_ possess a copy of the game and a bunch of Naruto manga volumes. It helps to know what I'm tearing into little bitty pieces and then reassembling in a form only just recognizable as the source material after all.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Don't expect an epic confrontation just yet, people. This is little more than the opening volley here and, just like with the game, I'm starting out slow and simple. I'll progress past the basics soon enough, don't you worry.

Writing this is slow going in some ways. Partly because I bounce around areas as I get inspired. I'm almost half-way done with the Chunin Exam matches, actually. I've got some pretty interesting ones lined up too. ;)

To **Insense** - I have zero plans to include Crazy Dave at this point. Of course that could easily change if the right scene goes by. Honestly, the ninjas alone hit, and likely exceed, the crazy quota for this fic.

To **Defchaos** - No, _ Leaf Arrowhead is _not_ a Pokemon reference, even if the end result is pretty dang similar to Razor Leaf. You're closer than you might be aware of regarding the source though.

To **Baron von Nobody** - No swimmer zombies yet, just a basic zombie and water shallow enough that it doesn't need to swim. No lilypads, yet, but Naruto does, fortunately, have sufficient land on all sides to not need them.

To **Eon** - Correct! *Gives you a whole plate of peanut butter cookies* I'd have sent them another way, but you neglected to sign in for your review. And did you want them with or without chocolate chips?

* * *

><p><strong>NARUTO VS ZOMBIES <strong>

**Chapter 4: There's a Zombie in Your C-Rank**

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Yamanaka Flower Shop-<strong>

Ino looked up as the bell over the door of her family's shop rang. She had mixed feelings on the device. Most customers realized its purpose to alert whoever was working to their presence and just let it ring out of politeness. A few of the ninja customers however took the damn thing as a personal challenge to their stealth skills and tried to enter without setting it off or giving themselves away. However, she saw that today's customer was Hyuga Hinata and her mood instantly brightened.

"Hey Hinata-chan!" she called out cheerfully. "What's going on today? Need more of that fertilizer blend?"

The two had struck up an interesting friendship over the past week. Ino had never paid much attention to Hinata in the academy. She knew who the girl was of course, since she made a point to know who everyone was, but Hinata had never really called attention to herself during classes. Or outside of class for that matter. The only things Ino ever learned for certain were that the girl had a crush on Naruto of all people and was too shy to act on it. She'd pretty much given up on getting anything out of the girl after a few dialogues consisting of stuttering and blushing with no real answers.

So, to her surprise, Hinata had walked into the shop the day after Sakura and her team left on that C-Rank and began asking about several _really_ rare plants and how to recognize them. At first she'd thought that Hinata was trying to expand the Hyuga garden or something, but to her surprise the plants were all ones that belonged to Naruto, and Hinata was on a long term D-Rank to care for them while the baka was out of the village.

To her embarrassment, Ino had spent several long moments trying to get her jaw and mind working again when they locked up as a result of trying to reconcile the idiotic Naruto she was familiar with and the Naruto who could care for so many rare and exotic plants, several of which were notoriously hard to grow in the climate of Konoha, all by himself. She honestly didn't think she could have been more shocked had she been shown proof that Naruto had a higher IQ than Shikamaru. That Naruto had left care instructions for each and every one that were just as good as anything Ino knew of had only enhanced the shock of the situation.

Ino had to admit that such an affinity for growing exotic plants made Naruto seem a lot more attractive than he used to. He wasn't quite as hot as Sasuke was, but she wouldn't be adverse to... _borrowing_... Naruto for a quick fling. If she could get Hinata's permission of course. She wasn't going to try and steal Naruto from the shy girl before Hinata had an honest chance for a romance with him, nor would she try and get between the two if they did work out.

The two had gotten to talking plants and found they had quite a bit in common regarding the subject. Hinata apparently liked to press flowers and spent a fair amount of time in her family's garden while Ino had been practically raised around flowers. The seemingly unlikely friendship that had begun to bloom led Hinata to come by the shop on a daily basis, and Ino was happy to socialize with the shy girl. And tease her about Naruto. If the baka broke Hinata's heart, Ino would be happy to throw him into the special greenhouse where they grew poison ivy for jilted lovers to spitefully send to their exes. After making sure that every store in the village was sold out of the medicine needed to soothe the itching.

"No," Hinata shook her head, "I've st-till got plenty. I just wanted to say hi before I went over to Nar-ruto's apartment for my mission and to practice with my special training."

"Hey, maybe you can show me what your special training is all about so I can help you with it?" Ino asked eagerly, hoping that the mystery training Hinata had been telling her about had something to do with Naruto's flower-growing jutsu. It had started up just a couple of days ago after all, which might mean that the girl had found something while snooping around the baka's apartment.

Hinata froze at the question.

(Flashback)

"How'd it go Hinata-sama?" Himawari asked the girl when she entered the room with a watering can and a measuring cup.

"Quite well, Himawari-chan!" Hinata greeted Naruto's, and now her, rather unique friend as she began making her rounds on the other plants.

After the extremely embarrassing feat of teaching Himawari what it meant for one human to be 'attracted' to another, and seemingly futile attempts to extract a promise from the flower to _not_ tell Naruto, she had insisted on teaching Hinata how to mold an odd type of chakra she called 'solar chakra'. Hinata had finally managed to pull off the technique yesterday. This was partly because Himawari hadn't been able to tell Hinata where Naruto kept his seeds and had said that 'ordinary' plants were a little more difficult to work with than those like her. Hinata had suggested she practice the technique on a simple rose seed instead anyway. As a result, the Hyuga garden now had a new rose bush in full bloom. With orange roses. Hinata had to stifle a giggle as she imagined the confusion the bush might create among whoever discovered it.

"That's great!" Himawari cheered. "Now we can move onto the next step!"

"Next step?" Hinata asked curiously as she finished with the last of the other plants in the room and moved to pour the remaining water-fertilizer mixture into Himawari's pot.

"Yep!" Himawari chirped, and then hummed in contentment as Hinata poured the last of the water over her roots. "Ah! So refreshing!

Hinata giggled at the flower's antics.

"Anyway, here's how it goes," Himawari said, suddenly serious, "Just mold a little solar chakra and be ready to grab it."

"Ok-kay," Hinata agreed, a little confused but did as the flower said. She had no idea what 'it' was, but figured 'it' would be recognizable.

"Here goes!" Himawari announced and began to glow yellow. The glow grew brighter and then seemed to compress into an orb at the same time as it was ejected from the flower.

Hinata reflexively grabbed the glowing yellow orb and was surprised to feel it drawn into her body and immediately added to her pool of 'solar chakra'. That... Himawari could... mold chakra and give it to other people? Such a thing was...

"That's amazing," Hinata breathed in awe. "Are you sure it's alright to show me this?"

"No worries!" Himawari said cheerfully. "Just promise you won't show anyone until Naruto-sama gets back! He's really excited about teaching it himself you know!"

(End Flashback)

"My ap-pologies Ino-san," Hinata said with regret, "but I c-can't show you until Naruto-k-kun gets back."

"Right, right," Ino rubbed the back of her head as _'drat'_ ran silently through her thoughts, "I forgot. And how many times do I have to say to use 'chan' with my name! We're friends, right?"

"G-gomen, Ino-chan," Hinata blushed.

"Don't apologize, Hinata-chan!" Ino chirped. "Just promise to tell me when Naruto-baka gets back so I can help get you set up with him!"

"A-ah... Of c-course..." Hinata tried not to go pale at the thought of what hare-brained schemes Ino might attempt to match her up with Naruto. The girl meant well, but she was well-known as a hopeless romantic with an extremely skewed sense of how romance worked. And while the thought of a gift-wrapped Naruto was appealing, she'd prefer it to be the other way around. And _after_ they started dating for that matter.

Hinata realized that she was going to have to talk with Naruto _immediately_ once he got back. Before Himawari had the chance to tell him anything embarrasing or Ino decided to take matters into her own hands.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni-<strong>

"Oh?" Kakashi said in surprise as he looked at the, now clearly, fake hunter-nin. Who'd have thought that someone like Zabuza had a partner in hiding? "Who might you be?"

"My name is Haku," Zabuza's compatriot replied as he bent down and began to field dress Zabuza's wound. It was rushed, but it would serve to prevent blood loss until something better could be arranged.

"So, how do you know about these things, brat?" Zabuza growled out as he leaned on his sword like it was a crutch. Zabuza could still fight despite the injury if he had to, but it was best not to tempt fate on such things. More ninja were crippled because they were stupid about their injuries than were from just the injuries themselves.

"Well, um," Naruto hedged, rubbing the back of his head, "my friend Himawari-chan told me stories about these zombie things, but I didn't think they were real! She said they were real scary too 'cause they come in waves and never get tired or feel pain or anything like that. And they like eating people's brains and stuff."

"Ah..." Tazuna whispered as he developed an ill look on his face at the same time he went white as a sheet. He looked ready to faint at a moment's notice. And when the first zombie shuffled into view, he looked as if he'd managed to while still standing.

"Oh,crapoh,crapoh,crapoh,crapoh,crapoh,crapoh,crapoh,crapoh,crap..." Sakura hyperventilated as she saw the undead shuffle out of the underbrush all around them.

"Is this all of them?" Kakashi asked the false hunter-nin.

"No," was the curt reply. "This is a mere fraction of what I saw in just one direction from here."

"We'regonnadiewe'regonnadiewe'regonnadiewe'regonnadiewe'regonnadie..." Sakura kept going.

"Well," Kakashi sighed, covering his Sharingan with his headband to conserve chakra, "I can honestly say that this isn't a genjutsu or any form of known ninjutsu. I can't discern any chakra at all in these things actually."

"How the _hell_ can they not have chakra?" Zabuza asked, incredulous at the very idea of such a thing.

"No idea. I'm open for ideas from any...one... What are you looking for, Naruto?" Kakashi cut off as he spotted Naruto frantically digging through his pack.

"I've got something that'll keep these things off of us until they stop coming!" the orange-clad genin yelled back. "I just need a few minutes to get it all set up, so I need you all to cover me!"

"Eh?" Sakura stopped her hyperventilating and stared at Naruto the same way a drowning person stares at a life preserver.

"Yeah, and just one of these things took a bunch of kunai before falling over," Zabuza growled out. "What do you suggest we do to keep from running out of ammunition?"

"Himawari-chan said to knock their heads off," Naruto absently replied, causing Zabuza to blink at the unexpectedly obvious answer. "Aha! Got 'em!" he cried, holding a couple of seed packets over his head.

The more experienced ninja; Kakashi, Zabuza, and Haku; weren't about to question the validity of Naruto's plan. Partly because the boy seemed to be the only one who had any idea of what the enemy was like, and partly because it wasn't the strangest plan they'd heard of. Even counting just those that worked. Besides, this was officially 'any port in a storm' territory. Things had already gone south so badly that the two groups had abandoned their respective missions in the interest of immediate survival, so whatever Naruto was planning could hardly make it worse. Sakura wasn't in any state to object to anything that even remotely sounded like a plan and Tazuna was still mute from terror. Which only left Sasuke's opinion.

"What good could your stupid plants possibly be, dobe?" Sasuke growled irritably. "Stop screwing around and..."

*POW* Sasuke was cut off rather abruptly by a sharp blow to the head.

"SHUT UP AND START KILLING THE DAMN ZOMBIES, SASUKE!" Sakura screamed at him, her eyes wide and her pupils dilated in panic.

"Yes, Sasuke," Kakashi admonished his overly-proud genin as he readied a kunai, "start picking off the zombies before they can get too close."

Sasuke glared at both his sensei and his female teammate, wondering why they were following the advice of someone who had once mixed up which end of a kunai was which (in Naruto's defense that incident had been during a prank war with Kiba back in the academy and the Inuzuka boy had deliberately messed with Naruto's kunai pouch). However, even he knew better than to try and argue with Kakashi during battle so he drew a kunai and threw it at one of the zombies.

The kunai buried itself in the zombie's eye, causing its head to jerk back from the impact, and did nothing else to slow it down. Another kunai flew towards the zombie from off to Sasuke's side a second later and hit it in the neck, severing its head nicely. The body continued another step and a half before it seemed to realize it lacked a head and fell over, decomposing into the foul-smelling corpse-dirt like the first one had.

"I don't need your help," Sasuke glowered at the masked Haku.

"I never claimed that you did," Haku replied evenly. "I was merely conducting an experiment to determine the most efficient way to remove our opponents' heads so as to best conserve our ammunition. It would appear that strikes to the joints, such as those between vertebrae, work the best while strikes elsewhere have minimal effectiveness."

Around them, several more zombies fell as Sakura, Kakashi, and Zabuza adopted the tactic Haku had outlined. Unfortunately, more still came from the foliage. It was becoming clear that if whatever Naruto had planned didn't work, there was a very real possibility of the group being overrun eventually.

"Here we go!" Naruto suddenly called out as he tossed a seed in front of the group and slammed his hands into the ground.

Zabuza and Haku were a little surprised at the sight of a large sunflower popping out of the ground, but shook it off quickly. However, _everyone_, except Naruto, was shocked when the flower _spoke_.

"Good mornEEEK!" the flower started to greet the group, only to become startled by the sight of the zombies. "Oh my Sun! I thought those things were gone forever!"

Reminded of the zombies, the ninja returned to throwing kunai at their rotting necks. They could get distracted later when death was a bit less imminent.

"Yeah, well, no one apparently told them that!" Naruto replied. "You ready?"

"Always, Naruto-sama!" the sunflower nodded with a smile and began to glow a bit. It then discharged that glow into the air in the form of a ball of strangely yellow chakra. The group watched out of the corner of their eyes as Naruto held his hand out and drew the orb into himself.

"Oh, perfect," Sasuke groaned. "We're fighting for our lives and Naruto's pulling party tricks."

"Hey!" Naruto growled back, growing another sunflower. "I need help to do this and they're helping!"

"Uh, huh," Sasuke deadpanned as he threw two kunai at once, decapitating two zombies. "You keep telling yourself that while the rest of us actually do something productive."

Kakashi refrained from offering an opinion one way or the other while he mused that the second sunflower had taken less time to grow than the first. And then what Naruto said suddenly clicked. He carefully watched out of the corner of his eye as Naruto drew in another yellow chakra orb and grew another flower a few seconds later. He _was_ getting faster with growing them.

Kakashi glanced at Zabuza and realized that the missing-nin had also grasped what this meant. The steadily increasing number of sunflowers wasn't meant to be an active defense at all. They were meant to gather chakra and then give it to Naruto so he could pull off whatever he had planned that much sooner. The logistics behind giving chakra to another organism, especially in the heat of battle or with any practical efficiency, were enough to make any chunin's, and the average jonin's, head spin. And here was a flower that apparently did it as naturally as breathing, or whatever the plant equivalent was.

Unfortunately, as impressive a feat as that was, it wasn't solving the growing zombie problem. They were coming a bit faster now and were beginning to press the group to cut them down before they got too close for comfort.

"I hope he can do something more than gather chakra before we run out of kunai," Zabuza muttered.

"Well, you do have that huge sword if things start getting really hairy, right?" Kakashi eye-smiled a bit morbidly as yet another sunflower sprouted from the ground around the group.

"I don't care _how_ fragile these things are," Zabuza replied flatly, "I don't want to let them in melee range after what happened out on the water."

"Narutooo..." Sakura squeaked, starting to panic again, "I'm running out of kunai here... Pleeaase tell me you've got something better than the flowers..."

"Got just the thing!" Naruto called as he tossed another seed out, gathered more of those orbs of yellow chakra, and slammed his hands into the ground, causing a new plant to pop up in front of the circle of sunflowers.

It looked... well, it looked a bit like a tiny green cannon with a face on a plant stalk.

The plant took one look at an advancing zombie and cried "Aw yeah! Major-league butt-kicking is back in town!" and then proceeded to spit what looked like a fist-sized _pea_ at the undead thing.

However ridiculous it may have looked, the impact from the pea staggered the zombie slightly and a second later another pea hit it. A third quickly followed and then another and the fifth knocked the zombie's arm off.

"Not quite as effective as a well-aimed kunai," the masked Haku stated.

"It's pathetic is what it is," Sasuke scoffed. The dobe _would_ think blunt projectiles appropriate in a situation that clearly called for blades. "And slow as well."

"I wouldn't judge so quickly Uchiha-san," Haku retorted calmly as the zombie's head was taken off by a shot to the face.

"Boom! Headshot!" the pea-spitting plant cheered and then went to work on another zombie as four more Naruto had grown in the interim were firing on zombies approaching from other sides.

"Unlike us, these plants do not seem to possess limited ammunition," Haku continued, his voice conveying the existence of a smile under his mask.

"Yep!" Naruto contributed growing another pea-spitting plant and preparing more. "And they don't get tired any more than the zombies do!"

"Makes sense," Sakura said, _slightly_ calmer now that the group had a working defense. "Tireless defenses for a tireless enemy. Yep. Makes sense. Works perfect. Just peachy keen. Lots of sense."

"Focus, Sakura-chan," Kakashi said to his student. Having the girl slip into shock-induced delirium would not be productive at this point.

"Yes," Haku said as he took down a zombie coming from a still-uncovered side of the group, "it would be best to save any emotional breakdown until after the danger has fully passed."

Sasuke just muttered something rather unflattering under his breath.

"How many of these seeds do you have, Naruto-san?" Haku asked as Naruto grew a twelfth pea-spitter, giving cover to all sides of the group.

"Lots!" Naruto replied cheerfully, apparently a little giddy from being able to show off in such a dire scenario. He drew in several more chakra-orbs from the sunflowers as he prepared to grow more plants. "Watch this one! I've been practicing it just in case something like this came up, but I didn't have enough juice to pull it off until just now."

With that, he grabbed a whole twelve seeds and tossed them in a circle around the group.

"Nitton: Happou Buntai!" he yelled unnecessarily, actually sprouting all of the seeds at once, doubling the group's active defenses.

"...you are such an idiot," Sasuke face-palmed. He wondered why he had ever expected Naruto to _not_ make up stupid names for stupid jutsu.

"Hey, kiss my ass, teme!" Naruto yelled back.

"I... are we safe now?" Sakura asked in a daze.

"Well, the zombies are still advancing, so not yet Sakura-chan," Kakashi replied guardedly.

"Yes, sensei, but look." Sakura pointed and the group saw what she meant. With twenty-four of the pea-spitting plants surrounding them, few zombies were able to make it farther than three steps from the underbrush before they were cut down. And with half as many sunflowers producing the odd yellow chakra for Naruto, additional defenses would be easy for him to produce if they were needed.

"Yeah," Naruto said, relaxing a bit, "we should be able to take a load off so long as we stay alert in case they suddenly decide to come at us all at once or something."

"I'm not trusting these weak stupid-looking things to protect us," Sasuke sneered and went back to sniping some of the zombies as they advanced.

"Suit yourself, brat," Zabuza rolled his eyes and adjusted his stance so that he wasn't putting any weight on his injured leg. You learned to take what rest you could in this business, no matter how odd the circumstances. Exhausting yourself solely to maintain your pride was a fool's errand no matter how you sliced it. He spotted the arrogant Uchiha, why the hell was the kid wearing his clan symbol this far from his village anyway?, grit his teeth at the casual insult. Unfortunately the brat didn't rise to the bait, which meant that avenue for entertainment was out while they waited for the zombie horde to thin.

"What happened to your leg?" Zabuza suddenly heard from one of the plants.

"One of those things," Zabuza replied with a grimace, "got the drop on me and bit my leg."

"Ouch," one of the pea-spitters said between shots. "*spit* Zombie bites are *spit* nasty things *spit*."

"Yeah, you're going to want to disinfect that as soon as possible," a sunflower agreed as it looked at the bandaged zombie bite on Zabuza's leg, its tone suggestive as to the kind of consequences that could occur if he didn't.

"I'm... not going to turn into one, am I?" Zabuza asked the sunflower with a sudden hint of fear. He had never put much stock in some of the more ridiculous superstitions he'd heard as a child, but he clearly remembered the threat of becoming an unnatural creature after being bitten by one was a common theme. It would be just his luck if _that_ was the one grain of truth in those old stories.

"Ew!" another said, making a disgusted face. "Goodness, no! But do you have any idea where those teeth have probably _been_?"

Zabuza's face remained a lovely shade of puce green until well after the skirmish was over and the two groups had separated.

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Hokage's office-<strong>

The Hokage had a bit of an issue at the moment. He was personally taking Hinata's weekly report of her D-rank mission, since there was an outside chance she could have stumbled onto classified information in Naruto's apartment. And no matter how small a chance it was, he needed to be aware of such an event as soon as possible. Plus it let him gauge the potential of his little side project regarding the two. The report itself had been pretty standard until Hinata had made mention of the mysterious Himawari and he'd gotten a little excited and asked her about the mystery girl. Which had caused the Hyuga heiress to stare at him oddly.

"A-ano..." the young heiress looked confused and uncertain, "Hokage-sama... If you know about Himawari-chan, why don't you just ask her? I m-mean... Himawari-chan isn't going anywhere and she seems eager to answer any questions asked her... And sh-she'd know far better than I would..."

The Hokage leaned back in his chair, honestly perplexed. Hinata clearly knew who Himawari-chan was and what prevented the girl from coming to meet with him. She also clearly thought that he knew as well. He could, of course, claim that such information was necessary to village security, but from the way the girl was acting, he doubted that she'd understand such a precaution. It was obvious to him that Hinata didn't view Himawari as a threat. To the village or herself. He'd even go so far as to suggest that she couldn't see any possible way for Himawari to become a threat either.

"Perhaps if you could escort her to my office, I could do precisely that," he said carefully.

"Ah... I..." Hinata stuttered a bit, clearly flustered, "I'm not sure I h-have the authority t-to do that Hokage-sama... I m-mean, she is under N-naruto's care after all..."

And there was the hitch. Apparently Himawari was infirmed enough to fall under Naruto's 'care', which gave the boy authority over where and how she received aid. He could, technically, order the girl to bring Himawari anyway, but that was a huge political gray area. Much like ordering an Inuzuka to bring him Aburame clan documents. Or a member of the Aburame to bring him one of the Inuzuka's nin-dogs. Such a thing was technically within his right as Hokage to do, but the stink it could potentially raise was almost always nowhere near worth any advantage it could gain him. Unless he could find reasonable suspicion that Himawari was a potential danger, his hands were effectively tied on the matter. He'd been trying to avoid forcing Naruto's hand on the issue, but it looked like he was going to have to if he ever wanted answers.

"Of course," he apologized. "I did not mean to presume too much. Please do, however, let her know I look forward to speaking with her when Naruto returns from his mission."

"C-certainly, Hokage-sama!" Hinata agreed quickly.

The Hokage dismissed the girl with a smile and began musing to himself. _'Curiouser and curiouser...'_

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: The following morning-<strong>

Team 7 had seen better days, certainly. All of them were, to some extent, wishing they could go back to those 'better' and, more importantly, 'zombie-less' days. About the only good news right then was that Tazuna had taken them to his daughter's house where she lived with her son and second husband, a man named Kaiza who had recently lost his arm to Gato's cruelty. This meant that they at least had a roof over their heads and guaranteed mealtimes, a place to put Kakashi sensei while he recovered from moderate chakra exhaustion overnight, and enough comfort to allow themselves to discuss their current position and Naruto's mysterious chakra-plants.

Naruto was the most torn because he honestly thought the zombies were the scariest thing he'd ever seen and he'd be happy to never see more. On the other hand his special plants had proven to be an invaluable asset to his career as a ninja and Naruto really didn't want to give up any brand of awesome he could get his hands on.

Kakashi was shortly behind Naruto. Chakra exhaustion from his fight against Zabuza and the following zombie skirmish not withstanding, no zombies would mean that he still knew what he was doing. He hadn't felt this out of his depth on a mission since before Minato-sensei died. However, he knew that ignorance of the threat didn't erase the fact that it existed, so he didn't really want disregard this new development either.

Sakura was in just as bad a shape mentally as Kakashi was physically. She'd nearly died, came face-to-gruesome-face with the living dead, had to watch Naruto of all people save the team, and in a moment of stress she'd snapped at her Sasuke-kun. However, she managed to prove that she really was made of sterner stuff than most girls her age by refusing to outright shut down. Instead, she took the other common route of coping with stressful events by falling back on what was most comfortable and familiar to her. For Sakura, that consisted of her crush on Sasuke-kun and her natural talent for academics. Since the first avenue was closed to her for the moment, she had dived completely into the second to prevent herself from freaking out completely.

Sasuke just wanted things to go back to the way they were so that Naruto would stop having delusions of being his equal. To him, this meant that he needed to quickly re-establish his rightful place in the pecking order before the idiot completely forgot his place at the bottom. Sakura, for all her uselessness, at least recognized his position of authority in the team.

Which brings us to current events.

* * *

><p><strong>-Outside Tsunami's House-<strong>

"This is the dumbest thing you've ever said, dobe," Sasuke said dismissively. Really, 'solar' chakra? How stupid _was_ the idiot?

"Oy! It works teme!" Naruto retorted, looking ready to start a fight.

*spit* went the oddly shaped pea plant in the grass next to Naruto, hitting Sasuke in the face. The shot wasn't nearly as forceful as those against the attacking zombies the other day, and thus caused no _significant_ injury to the Uchiha. However, a tic mark still appeared on Sasuke's forehead as evidence of his otherwise silent annoyance as a mild bruise started forming where he was hit.

"That wasn't very nice pea-san," Kakashi said, eye-smiling at the plant.

"Sorry, Kakashi-sama, nervous tic," the peashooter responded, not sounding sorry at all. Kakashi decided to let the incident slide. Sasuke needed to learn that his actions had consequences after all, and this kind of lesson did very little harm in the grand scheme of things. And it was pretty funny to boot.

"Actually," Sakura said thoughtfully from where she sat, "it kind of makes sense. I mean, normal plants get energy from the sun, right?"

"Yes..." Kakashi agreed, not sure where his student was going with this.

"So, this 'solar' chakra must be the normal state of chakra for these chakra-plants. So, what we're really doing is matching the chakra we already have to what they need to grow so fast. However, only a human can mold it properly to produce the instant growth necessary to make them an effective defense."

Kakashi's eye widened. That... made a great deal of sense. "Very good observation Sakura! I do believe you've hit the nail on the head!" he said cheerfully. It was something that merited further study after the mission was over at least.

"...It's still stupid," Sasuke said resolutely.

*spit*

"Will you cut that out!" he yelled at the pea plant as a second bruise began joining the first.

"It's a nervous tic! I can't help it!" the plant retorted, doing a very poor job of acting nervous.

"Stop antagonizing the zombie-killing plant Sasuke," Kakashi admonished.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Zabuza's Hideout-<strong>

Quite a large number of people would ask why Zabuza had left Tazuna alive in a scenario where he clearly had the upper hand. Zabuza would have quite cheerfully lectured them on how the situation was hardly as clear as they thought and beheaded the idiot. Not necessarily in that order either.

For one, he had received a rather significant bite injury to his leg that had needed to be disinfected as soon as he had access to any form of alchohol. Even if the chance for infection was discounted, the bite had torn his leg muscles to the point that it was hard for him to even walk, which greatly limited his battle mobility until it finished healing in about a week. Even counting that Copy-nin Kakashi was likely suffering from low chakra, he wasn't about to go into a ninjutsu battle if he could avoid it.

For another, Haku was not a killer. While his apprentice probably could have taken all three of Kakashi's students and disposed of Tazuna, the boy had never actually taken a life before which would give him a significant handicap. Zabuza had been rather deliberately avoiding the issue of Haku's first kill for a long time. He'd never admit to any sort of sentimentality, but he did always insist on taking such duties for himself.

Then there were the orange brat's plants. They were an unknown factor. From what he'd seen, they would likely be a minor nuisance to ninja of his and Haku's skills, but he knew all too well to never rely on appearances or initial impressions when dealing with unknown factors. The orange brat had rather handily reminded him of that fact.

And lastly, it was just ungrateful to kill someone you owed your life to, especially right after they'd saved it. That kind of action tended to do things like encourage people to leave you to die even though they had no quarrel with you or were in any sort of danger themselves. Zabuza would hardly claim to be honorable, but he didn't make a habit of reneging on debts either. That was plain bad for business.

Sure the zombie constructs were weak, but there had been a lot of them. More than Zabuza was certain he and Haku could have defeated on their own with the way he was injured and the zombies were spread out. Sure, they could have tried to make a break for it, but Zabuza was still a little rattled by how one of them had managed to sneak up on him without his notice and bite him in the first place. Slow though they were, he hadn't been about to go anyplace where he didn't have ample room on all sides to see them coming.

So here he was, a rather lucrative contract to assassinate a bridge builder on one hand and a life-debt to the ninja contracted to protect that same bridge builder with their lives on the other.

_'Figures this kind of thing isn't covered in the Shinobi Rules of Conduct,'_ he mused bitterly.

* * *

><p><strong>-Inside Tsunami's house-<strong>

The group had been spending the day trying to learn how to mold the 'solar chakra' needed to cultivate the plants. Each of them had a pot with a single seed for a chakra-plant in front of them and were practicing in a room that had a window facing the sun so they had plenty of the sunlight needed for the process.

Interestingly, Inari had somehow wormed his way into the training session with the approval of his mother and adopted father and Naruto was working the most with the young boy, leaving his team with the booklet and whatever they could overhear as he instructed Inari.

Kakashi had earlier found out that the process of molding 'solar' chakra could not be copied by the Sharingan. Perhaps the most surprising thing about that was that Kakashi had _not_ been surprised in the least. What he _could_ see with the Sharingan was the normal blue color of the chakra changing to a sun-yellow, which was all he needed to see to grasp that this process was, in fact, real. Chakra wasn't something that changed color for no reason after all.

The booklet, while fairly helpful once you accepted that it was not a hoax, was not quite as detailed as he would have liked. Something this vague would have never met the academy's standards regarding detail, which seemed to only contribute to the mental block of taking the process seriously. It was Kakashi's experience that human belief could not actually make the impossible possible. However, it was also his experience that human belief _could_ make the possible impossible, alarmingly often even. If someone didn't actually expect their actions to produce results, they often didn't put forth the effort necessary, which could cause their efforts to fail. It honestly came as no surprise to him that Naruto could pull off something others wrote off as impossible without trying simply because he didn't subscribe to the traditional mindset. It was an attitude that Kakashi found refreshing if only because it reminded him of his old sensei. The Yondaime didn't create jutsu feared across the elemental nations by accepting traditional limitations after all.

Despite the decidedly unfamiliar nature of the exercise, the disappointingly vague descriptions of the booklet, and the unfortunately ingrained idea that this kind of chakra conversion wasn't something that the average ninja could perform, both he and Sakura were making slow progress with the ability. One of the things they'd already learned that Naruto had neglected to mention was that it was quite easy to store chakra in 'solar' form even after it was converted and keep it separate from a person's ordinary chakra. Thus, you didn't need to re-convert it provided you used it reasonably soon after the initial conversion since 'solar' chakra apparently had an unfortunate tendency to 'leak' out of the human body. This was quite useful since it apparently took some time to gather enough to stimulate the growth of a chakra-plant, especially for beginners. It also meant that the conversion process could be aborted to cast normal jutsu and then continued with no appreciable drawback. The biggest downside was that, apparently no matter how skilled, a human could not mold 'solar' chakra at night. Heavy cloud cover also seemed to hinder the process rather significantly.

Sasuke on the other hand did not seem capable of doing it at all. Kakashi mused that it was probably due to the fact that Sasuke seemed to be in denial on the whole issue. Kakashi honestly believed that Sasuke wasn't able to do it because he didn't really want it to be real, thus reinforcing the mental block he had regarding the ability. Naruto, the dead-last of their graduating class being able to do something that Sasuke, the rookie of the year, could not had to sting his pride. It probably didn't help that Sasuke was currently being forced to admit that an ability he'd called useless to Naruto's face at an earlier date had in fact proved to be invaluable in a situation where traditional ninja arts fell short. If Sasuke could get over that little fact, he could go on to be a great ninja. If, however, he didn't get over it, which he seemed bound and determined not to, his growth could very well halt right here and never progress.

Kakashi sighed mentally to himself. He could give Sasuke all the lectures in the world, but they would be pointless it the boy wasn't willing to listen to them. More and more since he'd been assigned to Kakashi's squad, the boy proved unwilling to listen to anything that didn't validate his narrow world view. It had been getting steadily worse since Naruto had unveiled his special chakra-plants, leaving Kakashi to wonder if Sasuke had tried and failed to research the ability on his own. He had hoped that Sasuke didn't suffer from the traditional Uchiha arrogance, but it seemed that his prayers were going to go unanswered.

"I did it!" Sakura suddenly cried from where she was practicing. Kakashi turned to see Sakura with one of those pea-spitters in front of her, and noticed Sasuke's scowl deepen out of the corner of his eye. Well, he wasn't about to let an Uchiha sulk stop him from complimenting his other students on their achievements. Especially when they were doing better than he himself was.

"That's very good Sakura!" he complimented her.

"Good morning miss, who are you?" the plant asked.

"Haruno Sakura, pleased to meet you!" Sakura beemed.

"I am pleased to meet you as well Sakura-sama."

Kakashi smiled to himself. He rather liked the fact that the chakra-plants were so polite, at least as long as they were treated decently. A nice sunny spot, decent soil, and occasional watering and they were happy as could be and thought the world of you. They didn't even need frequent interaction. Like ordinary plants, they had no problems with sitting around doing nothing all day long. If you were disrespectful to them on the other hand, they apparently had a bit of a vindictive streak. Something Sasuke seemed selectively oblivious to.

"*yaaawwwnnn*" came another voice from over where Naruto was working with Inari. "Good morning."

Kakashi also found it rather amusing that all of the plants that were grown seemed to think it was morning, no matter what the actual time of day was.

"Woohoo! You did it Inari!"

Kakashi turned at Naruto's voice to see Inari staring incredulously at a nut with a friendly face that was as big as he was. The boy who didn't know how to even mold chakra when they arrived had gotten it before him? He must really be slipping lately. He'd have to up his personal training regimen when they got back to Konoha.

"Will you shut up, dobe!" Sasuke growled, angrily tossing a kunai in their direction without looking.

The only reason Kakashi didn't move to intercept the thrown weapon was because the poorly aimed throw wasn't going to come anywhere near hitting a human. The sensei of Team 7 would have reprimanded Sasuke for attacking a comrade like that, no matter how ineffective it turned out to be, if he wasn't distracted by the kunai simply bouncing off the giant nut. 'Well, that seems like a tough nut to crack,' he thought to himself with amusement.

"Could you go a little more to the left, please? I have an itch," the nut said pleasantly.

Sasuke got a tic mark on his forehead and this time intentionally threw his kunai at the nut. Even though the throw was harder, and perfectly on target, it had no more effect than the first.

"Oh, yeah, right there! Thanks!"

Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle along with the laughing duo of Naruto and Inari as Sasuke stomped out of the room.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Tsunami's house: Next morning-<strong>

Kakashi had, quite unfortunately, woken up early that morning. He should probably be getting more rest and sleeping in, which was a rare treat in and of itself on missions, but Tsunami's cooking smelled pretty dang good and he also needed to eat plenty to get his strength back up. So he was sitting in the kitchen while the lady of the house fixed breakfast, waiting for everyone else to wake up.

"I'M SORRY!" Naruto's terrified voice pierced the house. "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE IN THERE!"

And if anyone had still been asleep, they weren't anymore.

"DID NO ONE TEACH YOU TO KNOCK?" Sakura's voice screamed after him. "HERE! LET ME DEMONSTRATE ON YOUR HEAD!"

Footsteps pounded from upstairs, heading in their direction and Kakashi got his camera ready.

"I'M SORRY, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Naruto, still in his bedclothes, screamed as he ran down the stairs.

"I WON'T! I'LL JUST BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY!" Sakura yelled as she chased after him clad only in a towel.

*Click click click click click* went Kakashi's camera as the two charged through the kitchen.

"Embarrasing blackmail photos," Kakashi eye-smiled at Tsunami when he spotted her looking at him from where she stood at the stove. "One of the perks of being a jonin-sensei. I intend to save these for if they ever start dating anyone and keep extras in case they ever have kids."

"Oh," Tsunami blinked, "well that's alright then. Maybe I should bring out some of Inari's baby photos while you're all here?"

Kakashi smiled some more as he bonded with Tsunami over the pastime common to adult parental figures everywhere: Embarrassing those they cared for.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Forest-<strong>

Somehow Kakashi's team had managed to survive each other that morning, finish getting ready, and eat breakfast. Kakashi was a little fuzzy on the details, but it involved a ludicrous attempt of Naruto's to deflect blame onto the "one-armed man" and a moment of horrified realization as Kaiza cheerfully waved at Naruto with his one arm and teasingly chastised the boy for "selling out his partner".

After most of the group had a good laugh at that, Kakashi had taken his students out to the forest behind the house. Far enough away that they could train without interruption, but close enough that they could monitor the house. Tazuna was still at the house since he had agreed to postpone returning to work on the bridge until the group could join him there.

Kakashi was pretty certain that neither Zabuza nor his apprentice were going to try anything for a good week, but he wasn't about to bet on Gato not pulling something. He also wasn't taking chances that they'd seen the last of those zombie things either.

The goal was to get his students at least passingly proficient with the exercise he was teaching them by the end of the day and then move further training to the bridge itself. The exercise was a standard genin chakra control technique for climbing vertical surfaces while retaining full freedom of movement. Also known in Konoha as the 'tree-climbing' exercise. Which was why he'd chosen some of the tallest trees he could find.

The initial trial run had gone a bit differently than expected. Sasuke had overdone the amount of chakra needed to adhere to the tree and been rather violently repelled. That had been expected. Naruto, with his horrendous chakra control issues, had actually _under_done it and landed flat on his back. Kakashi had expected that result, just not from Naruto. Sakura had been the biggest surprise by actually getting it right on her first try. Sure she'd only made it to the lowest branch, but being able to do it period that fast put her in a _very_ exclusive club. One Kakashi himself couldn't rightly claim membership of.

He'd praised her quite blatantly as part of a deliberate gamble to motivate Naruto and Sasuke, which worked beautifully. He then proceeded to call her aside and tear the confidence boost back down by privately insulting the size of her chakra reserves and making her work on boosting them by running all the way to the top of the tree and back down again until she collapsed. It was the kind of douchebag move he was all but required to perform as the girl's sensei, but he figured that the confidence boost from watching the two boys on her team eat crow evened the whole thing out.

So they'd spent the morning doing that while Kakashi secretly increased his collection of blackmail photos from their screw-ups, including a few particularly amusing shots of an incident that resulted from Naruto getting the idea to use 'solar' chakra for the exercise and ending up glued to the tree trunk by his feet, and then broke for lunch. After lunch, they went right back out, only to find a surprise guest in the form of Haku. This time without his mask.

Kakashi almost didn't recognize the boy, despite being able to recognize his chakra signature. This was because Haku looked very disturbingly like a girl when his face, long hair, and fairly feminine choice of kimono were taken together. If Kakashi hadn't spotted the boy's adam's apple, he'd have thought Haku had been a girl trying to pass as male under the hunter-nin's mask.

His three students on the other hand were completely fooled. Their reactions when they learned Haku was the 'hunter-nin' with Zabuza made for an entertaining photo. Their reactions upon learning Haku was male were even better. _That_ photo wasn't going into the blackmail collection, oh no. There was no way his students could afford the price to keep those expressions from circulating. No, Kakashi was going to show that particular shot to everyone he knew once they got back.

Haku had been quite the help with the training actually, despite technically being an enemy. His advice had gotten Naruto to produce that look of dawning comprehension teachers so loved to see on their students and make some real progress with the exercise. Sasuke had, upon seeing Naruto's progress, managed to swallow his pride long enough to ask for advice as well.

And then the 'catch' had become known. Haku had asked Naruto to tutor him in how to grow the chakra-plants so he could defend Zabuza against a zombie attack in the future. Kakashi was a little torn on the issue. On one hand, willingly giving up a secret like _that_ was against the policy of every ninja village everywhere. On the other hand, it belonged to Naruto and had not yet been deemed classified in any way by the Hokage. Officially, Naruto could teach it to whoever he liked.

Naruto had even told Kakashi that neither the technique nor the seeds originated in Konoha. He'd gotten them through mail order. Which meant that Haku, and indeed anyone, could theoretically acquire the secret themselves with a little effort. This way, at least, they had some idea of who knew it. Thus there was no practical benefit to denying the technique to Haku. So Kakashi had allowed Naruto full discretion on the matter. Naruto, of course, agreed cheerfully and proceeded to give Haku pointers.

On the upside, Naruto had gotten Haku talking about his childhood, letting the group learn that he had a bloodline that he was persecuted and hunted merely for having, and only being the apprentice of Zabuza allowed Haku to escape a life of hiding his nature and facing death every moment of his life. The two, of course, became fast friends talked while they trained until the sun began to go down.

"Well team, I think it's time to call it a day," Kakashi called out.

"Thank you for your help Naruto-san," Haku said politely. "May I keep the seed for additional practice on my own?"

"Sure! I've got plenty after all," Naruto agreed readily.

"You are most generous. Tell me, Naruto-san," Haku said as he accepted the seed packet from Naruto, "do you train for the sake of yourself or for the sake of someone else?"

"Huh?" Naruto asked in confusion, causing Haku to giggle in a disturbingly feminine way. "Aw, come on!"

"I meant no offense," Haku placated serenely. "I meant to ask if you had someone who is truly important to you. I truly believe that people become strongest when they protect what is precious to them."

Kakashi watched his students' reactions to a philosophy he was sure his own sensei would have been honored to listen to. Sasuke scoffed condescendingly and went back to his practice. Sakura had the look of a love-struck girl, for once directed at someone _other_ than Sasuke. And Naruto looked like a man who had found religion.

Kakashi would have prayed to the Kami for deliverance from what Naruto's reaction suggested, but he had a sinking feeling that a Naruto who shared this belief of Haku's with religious fervor was what the Kami would consider deliverance in the first place. Kakashi had a personal theory that divine intervention was how the Kami managed to amuse themselves. The only thing you could do when the Kami got involved was pay attention to the antics and convince other people to buy your drinks in exchange for telling them all about it. On the bright side, if Naruto really was some divinely selected savior, Kakashi might never again have to cover his own bar tab for as long as he lived.

* * *

><p><strong>-The next day: Nami no Kuni: Zabuza's hideout-<strong>

"So," Gato said from the entryway, flanked by two cheap mercenary thugs names Waraji and Zouri, "even you come back empty handed. Mist ninja must be pretty pathetic."

Zabuza glared from where he was sitting with his leg propped up to keep him from putting pressure on it while Haku glared right next to him. The criminal tycoon hadn't come by as soon as either of them expected, which meant he must have been very distracted by the other issues recently plaguing him, issues which the two missing-nin now had potential insight into.

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" the squat businessman said as he advanced towards the prone Zabuza, only to be stopped by Haku interposing himself between them.

"Advance no further," Haku stated coldly.

"You insolent little!" Gato spat. "Sieze him!"

The two mercenaries moved to draw their blades, only to find their swords already in Haku's hands and pointed straight at their hearts. No one in the room other than Zabuza had even seen him move.

"There were... complications," Zabuza said before the situation could escalate further. "We suspect the group that interfered may be the same one you're having trouble with."

"Really?" Gato said, suddenly interested as Haku returned to his place beside Zabuza. "Who are they?"

"They appear to be the living dead," Zabuza stated bluntly.

Gato's mood took a massive dive that same moment. "If you're going to lie to me, at least choose something more plausible than that!"

"Believe it or not," Zabuza retorted, "that is what we saw."

"Fine!" Gato growled. "Claim what you want! But know this! You have only one more chance to dispose of the bridge builder or your contract is terminated!"

"If you insist, we make our move at the end of the week," Zabuza said calmly as their employer stormed out.

"He means to betray us," Haku said after a few minutes. "He has no intention of honoring the contract even if we do succeed."

"Of course he doesn't," Zabuza sighed. He was now certain that Gato had never intended to pay them. He hadn't lived this long without developing a keen sense of when someone might betray him. As far as he was concerned, the contract was now null and void. "We'll put on a show for him to draw the bastard out and then we'll deal with him."

"As you wish, Zabuza-sama," Haku said tightly. It was obvious the boy still needed to vent some anger. "I will be training in the meantime."

Zabuza watched as Haku went over to the sunlit window and the large flower pot beside it and proceeded to try molding this strange 'solar' chakra. Had the source of this bizarre training idea been anyone other than the orange brat, who Zabuza had personally witnessed do exactly what this was supposed to accomplish, he'd have thought his apprentice was taking leave of his senses. As it was, Haku looked ready to kill someone while performing a training exercise that could have probably doubled as a form of calming meditation.

"Are you trying to grow the plant or kill it?" Zabuza asked sardonically.

"Apologies, Zabuza-sama," Haku clipped out. "I am imagining focusing the sun upon Gato as if I were a misguided youth frying an ant with a magnifying glass."

Zabuza sighed again. He really hoped this was over soon. Haku was supposed to be the voice of restraint in this partnership to help keep Zabuza's emotional issues under control, not the other way around. So he sat and watched his apprentice for nearly half an hour as the boy focused his attention on the sunlight from the window and the flower pot in front of him.

The intense focus paid off when a rather bizzarre plant popped out of the pot. It looked a bit like the pea-shooting plants that the orange brat had grown to defend against the zombie constructs. However, the 'head' portion was a light ice-blue, with what looked like protrusions out the back of the 'head' that looked like crystals.

"Good morning, sir," the plant said formally, making Zabuza think of a pleasant domestic servant.

"Interesting," Zabuza said. Not only did it look like the orange brat had a more diverse aresenal than just basic offense and support, but the skill was not exclusive to he alone. Maybe once this was over he himself would give this a shot. It wasn't his typical preference, but this seemed like it would be a worthwhile skill to learn.

"Greetings plant-san, I am Haku," the boy bowed.

"It is an honor to meet you Haku-sama," the blue plant said with a credible imitation of a bow in return.

The scene was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Haku opened the door to reveal the Uchiha student of Kakashi's. Zabuza noted that the boy looked as uptight as ever as Haku welcomed him in.

"What brings you by, Uchiha-san?" Haku asked.

"Kakashi-sensei wanted me to deliver this," he said, handing a scroll to Haku and spotting the blue plant. "Ugh, what a ridiculous color."

The plant's eyes narrowed, but it didn't take any other action.

"I thank you for delivering this message, Uchiha-san," Haku said politely, placing the scroll off to the side.

"What do you see in these things anyway?" the Uchiha continued rudely. "They have no practical advantage and the 'zombies' they're supposed to be effective against are too stupid to warrant this sort of effort."

"That's just it, brat," Zabuza said from where he sat. "Those 'zombies' are stupid. They aren't smart enough to run when they're outmatched. They aren't smart enough to make intricate battle plans that can be thwarted with the right counter-maneuver. They aren't smart enough to stop because of injury. They aren't smart enough to be scared of a stronger opponent. They aren't smart enough to realize when they've lost. They aren't smart enough to fall for deception. They're so stupid that they aren't smart enough to make mistakes. They're so stupid that they're all the more dangerous for it. To summarize, _they're too stupid to be harmless_. They just keep coming until either you or they are eliminated."

"You're a coward to be scared of these things," Sasuke glared contemptfully at the missing-nin.

Zabuza shot Haku a look to prevent him from avenging the insult on the unsuspecting brat. Sasuke would never know how close he came right then to having more in common with his sensei than he'd really prefer. However, the other occupant of the room hadn't been around long enough to understand the subtle undertones that master and apprentice could communicate with.

*Spit* went the blue pea-spitting plant, shooting a blue fist-sized pea that trailed a cold mist as it flew through the air.

*Kkkkrrrkkkk...* went Sasuke as he was instantly covered in a thin layer of ice. The 'last' Uchiha immediately broke free of the ice by reflex and began simultaneously shivering and glaring at the blue plant.

"And you," Haku retorted, smiling serenely now that some manner of humiliation had been visited on their 'guest', "are a fool not to be."

"Hmph-ph-ph-ph..." the Uchiha brat tried to snort dismissively, only for his involuntary shivering to ruin the effect. "I've deliv-v-v-vered the mes-s-s-sage and have n-n-n-no more reason-n-n-n to be h-h-h-here."

And with that he stormed out of the hut with as much of his shredded dignity as he could.

"Neat trick," Zabuza said to the plant from where he sat, honestly impressed. Getting chakra to reduce heat in something was ridiculously hard, which was why Haku's bloodline was so coveted and feared at the same time. "Too bad it doesn't last long."

"'Course it didn't," the blue plant said cooly. "He's got body heat after all."

Zabuza and Haku both blinked at that. And then the full implications of that statement hit the two of them.

"Of course," Haku said softly. "The zombies are effectively animate corpses and thus don't possess body heat. Which means thay have no defense at all against a freezing assault..."

"Yeah," the plant agreed. "I don't have enough frost power to freeze 'em solid or anything, they're too strong from me to pull that off, but they get _really_ slow until the weather thaws them out."

"So..." Zabuza mused, "if the weather was really cold, they might never thaw on their own, right?"

"Probably not, why?" the plant asked curiously.

"Well," Haku replied pleasantly as he channeled a bit of chakra and caused the room temperature to drop a little, "you see, snow-san, ice is a bit of a specialty of mine."

"I do believe this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship Haku-sama," the plant said cheerfully.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Gato's office-<strong>

Gato stewed as he sat at his desk. How _dare_ those two defy him...

He was the one with the money. The one with the power. It was the purpose of base mercenaries, no matter how skilled, to cater to his every whim for as long as he promised them money. Whether or not he intended to deliver on his promise.

He'd show them. Them, those meddling Leaf-nin that opposed him, that horribly irritating bridge builder, and whoever it was that was interfering in his operations. And with the death of all who meddled in his affairs he would reign in business of all kinds unopposed.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> I do hope I'm not being too subtle in my protrayal of the plants disliking Sasuke. :P

What's that? Fangirl Sakura would never hit Sasuke like that? You're right, she wouldn't. Under normal circumstances anyway. Those... were _hardly_ normal circumstances. The mind does funny things under stress. Things you would never even _consider_ saying or doing are suddenly being said and done as if they're the most natural thing in the world. Sakura's worship of Sasuke just happens to take a backseat to her desire for the immediate and total destruction of shambling undead hordes. Thus her treating Sasuke like he's Naruto for a brief moment.

Sasuke and Haku's mini-debate portrays my thoughts on the effectiveness of plants (Pea-shooters in this case) vs the effectiveness of ninja very nicely. On Sasuke's side of the debate, they fire slowly at a rate of one per second and they shoot blunt projectiles. Even a genin can launch more bladed kunai per second than the pea-shooters can launch peas if they wish to and often with greater accuracy. On Haku's (and Naruto's) side of the debate, the pea-shooters _never run out of ammo or get tired_. A genin ninja is undeniably better in a combat scenario where the battle can be decided in an instant, but the plants are better in a battle of attrition where victory is decided over the course of long minutes or even hours. And since the zombies excel at wearing down defenses over long periods of time through sheer numbers and constant assault, the plants are the perfect defense againt them.

Nitton should translate as "Sun Release". I intend to be making regular use of such jutsu throughout the course of the fic. Some solar jutsu will involve the plants, but there will be others which actually channel solar-chakra into more "traditional" ninjutsu. And with a mind like _Naruto's_ at the forefront, all bets are off as to what can be produced. Personally, I just hope I don't mangle the translation too much.

Note: Some of you may recall that this was previously 'Hiton'. Miner603 has kindly informed me that this is not the accurate translation in a review and I have corrected.

* * *

><p><strong>Non-Canon jutsu introduced in this chapter:<strong>

**Nitton: Happou Buntai** (Sun Release: Firing Squad) - The sun-user channels mass amounts of solar-chakra to grow a large number of offensive plants at once. The plants must all be identical however, which means a ninja can't grow a mixed batch of snow peas and repeaters.

* * *

><p><strong>Challenge:<strong>

**Indiana Wall-nut** - Kill 15 or more zombies with a single Giant Wall-nut in Wall-nut Bowling 2.

* * *

><p>And my parting shot for the day:<p>

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself."

- Charles Dickens


	5. We Don't Want Zombies in the CRank

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the rights to Naruto or Plants vs Zombies. Which, let's face it, is probably a good thing.

**AN:** I was intending to do the battle on the bridge this chapter, but I've been running into a few writing blocks on certain points, so I just decided to post what I've got now to tide you all over. That and I wanted to post something on Friday the 13th. Seemed appropriate somehow.

To **TwiceMarked** - They'll be of comparable strength. Use of one or the other is going to be a preference issue among ninja.

* * *

><p><strong>NARUTO VS ZOMBIES <strong>

**Chapter 5: We Don't Want Zombies in the C-Rank**

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Tsunami's house-<strong>

Kakashi was rather glad that no more of the zombies they'd encountered during the fight with Zabuza had shown up yet. It allowed him more time to recover and try to learn how to use the 'solar' chakra necessary to grow the chakra-plants that were so effective against them. So far, he'd had little success in the endeavor. Sure, he had collapsed from chakra exhaustion once they'd reached the house, but according to his student Sakura this exercise was no more strenuous than basic academy chakra-molding, an _F_-rank jutsu that was commonly used by many field ninja in his very position to gauge their recovery.

While he would never begrudge Sakura, or even young Inari, their successes, something Sasuke seemed all too willing to do, it still stung his pride as an elite combat ninja that they had progressed so much faster than he had. As it stood he could practically _feel_ the final step in the process, but he just couldn't seem to cross it.

As if the minor tangent within his train of thought had summoned him, Sasuke stomped into the house from his errand. Kakashi took in his appearance and his visible eyebrow raised.

"So what did Haku manage to grow?" he asked, the exclusion of Zabuza being a minorly selfish bout of wishful thinking that someone else at his level was having similar difficulties than any true belief that the man lacked the capability.

"What makes you think that _okama_ managed to grow anything?" Sasuke growled out angrily, his injured pride all too evident to Kakashi's ability to read others.

"Well," he said, not only not bothering to hide his amusement, but injecting some extra into his tone and smiling so obviously that even Sasuke couldn't miss it past his self-centered brooding, "for one you have a small bruise on your head the size of a large pea. For another, you have some lingering traces of frost in your hair. Or perhaps you're going prematurely gray?"

The way Sasuke's eyes widened and he made a dash for the bathroom, and likely a mirror, reminded Kakashi why he agreed to become a jonin sensei in the first place. Sure, teaching young genin and helping them reach their potential was great and all, but what he had really looked forward to was teasing them mercilessly and gathering embarrassing blackmail to use on them later in their lives. Naruto obliged without realizing it, and Sakura hadn't been that far behind him recently.

Sasuke had been quite a bit harder as he possessed a holier-than-thou attitude that Kakashi was certain was several magnitudes worse than anything he himself had ever subjected Minato-sensei and his teammates to. At least he hoped so. The idea that he'd _ever_ been as bad as Sasuke was currently made him a bit ill to consider. However, the recent removal of Sasuke from anything resembling a comfort zone had left him a much easier mark than usual and Kakashi had no qualms about exploiting the weakness ruthlessly whenever he could. Sasuke's every attempt to wrest control of the situation and regain his 'unquestioned' status as top dog only served to make his situation worse, much to Kakashi's amusement.

If only Kakashi could be certain that Sasuke would emerge from this as a better person, he'd be able to enjoy it without reservation.

Sighing, the masked ninja maneuvered himself to a better seat. Lunch would be soon and he wanted the best seat for the usual meal-time drama. Reservations or no, he intended to milk this for all it was worth while he still could.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Gato's office-<strong>

Gato was currently yelling at someone over a two-way radio. He loved the device despite the cost involved in its purchase and setting up the network for his business. He loved it because it meant he rarely had to leave his office to issue orders to his various subordinates all over the elemental countries. His businesses had stakes in nearly everything, up to and including quite a few ninja villages. Gaining a stake in a business was the first step to taking it over, and Gato intended to monopolize the entire world through his economic might. He couldn't afford to leave his operations to chance.

Wave country was simply a test run of his ability to economically control a nation, chosen because of its isolation and resources. If he succeeded here, he would have a stepping stone to exerting control over other stronger countries by gaining controlling interest in their businesses. If all went according to plan, he stood to have a stranglehold on even the five great nations by controlling their entire infrastructure.

Of course, there were three little problems to his plans right now that could set his operations back by at least five years, if not a whole decade.

The first was that bridge builder Tazuna who was building a physical connection to the mainland that would break Wave's dependence on his shipping to continue surviving. Making this problem worse was the ninja Tazuna had somehow managed to hire. Kakashi had quite the record for successful completion and Gato might have considered hiring the man if he didn't want to keep from being dependent on any of the ninja villages for his business practices.

The second problem was the ninja he'd hired to assassinate the man. They should have accomplished their task before the man ever got to Konoha, but apparently he underestimated their ability to sift through the dregs of society and kill a single elderly commoner. It was supposed to be a simple assassination, accomplished quickly and then the missing nin dealt with using some poison gas and eager mercenaries so he could collect the bounty on them from Kirigakure and put it to good use in his business.

But the third problem was what really had him on edge. _Someone_ had picked off a few of his ships and holdings and then vanished without a trace. Zabuza had tried to make him look foolish with a claim of zombies, which made him wonder if the man was in on it in some way.

In any case, he had to get everything properly set up for the end of the week. He intended to make a very public example of the first two problems and, if fortune smiled upon him, the third problem as well.

_No one_ could be allowed to get in the way of his plans and live after all.

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure-<strong>

Team 8 was making their way down the street, having completed their team training and team missions for the day. And all three of them looked ready to collapse.

"Sensei is _insane_!" moaned Kiba. The son of the Inuzuka matriarch had dirt streaks and grass stains over every inch of his outfit, and more than a few scrapes on his body as well. "I mean, it's bad enough that we had to track down that [heavily-double-secret-censored] cat, after that torture she called team training this morning, but did she have to use all of those genjutsu at the _same time_? And forbid us to use chakra to break them?"

"Kiba-san..." came the strained voice of his teammate, Aburame Shino. The normally stoic and impeccably poised boy was slumped over in exhaustion and looked as if he'd been dragged into a dark alley and mugged. "...please cease speaking..."

"Yeah, sure," Kiba sighed out, too tired to even argue with his best friend. His puppy Akamaru whined from where he was riding in Kiba's jacket hood, looking for all the world as if he'd lost a fight with a rabid mud puddle.

Their final teammate, Hyuga Hinata, just focused on walking and breathing. All while trying to ignore the stench of her own sweat that soaked her from head to toe and the ache in what felt like every muscle of her body. She looked more like she'd been swimming than anything, and she still had to do her duties at Naruto's place. After she borrowed his shower.

_'I'm just glad I thought to put some spare clothes at Naruto-kun's apartment,'_ she thought to herself, far too tired to even blush at the inherent impropriety of keeping clothes at a boy's apartment.

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Bridge construction site-<strong>

Sakura moaned as she stretched her sore muscles. As soon as the group had the tree exercise down, Kakashi-sensei had moved them all to the bridge and had them helping with the construction, with emphasis on any job that involved heavy lifting. On the upside, he allowed them all to enhance their muscles with chakra to make the job easier. This was apparently two-fold as it kept them from overexerting themselves in case a fight popped up and helped them hone their control further while still allowing them to fulfill their mission. The downside, at least in Sakura's eyes, was that all three of them were expected to do the same amount of grunt work.

Sasuke had just scowled at having to perform menial tasks, but had managed to follow orders grudgingly and without _spoken_ complaint. Naruto had, at being told it was training, tried to make it into a competition that Kakashi-sensei had thankfully ended before it began. The loudmouth was even somehow able to end the day with more energy than he started it with. Sakura, though certainly strong enough for the duties, was finding out just how far behind her teammates she was in the stamina department.

She started out just fine, but began to flag only an hour after beginning the day. She wanted to complain loud and long over how hot, tired, and dirty she was getting, but one look at Kakashi-sensei's eye-smiling masked face had stopped her. She had realized rather suddenly that he looked positively _eager_ for someone to complain and her complaints died in her throat as her pride as a kunoichi asserted itself for once rather than her vanity in her appearance.

Thus she spent every day in silent agony as she sweated bucket after bucket until her red kunoichi mini-dress was so soaked that it was essentially plastered to her form and she felt ready to maim someone for a hot bath.

On the other hand, she'd begun to notice a few interesting things in her attempts to distract her mind from how tired she felt. She was getting quite good at distracting herself from unpleasant thoughts lately. The first was that her sensei looked a little impressed with how she didn't complain, which boosted her ego a little even when he decided to be a slave-driver. The second was that Naruto actually wasn't goofing around despite acting like a goof. The blond was honestly doing everything he was told and soaked up the praise he got for doing a good job like a happy puppy being given a treat. The third was that none of the people on the bridge were in any way trying to ogle or grope her like a few random people had tried when she was tapped for grocery shopping in the town (one of which had even tried to use the action to disguise picking her pocket). Apparently Tazuna had pretty good judgement regarding who worked for him, or perhaps the paranoia of what might happen if Gato or his thugs wandered by had their minds on other things. And finally she noticed how Sasuke was managing to be rude and condescending to everyone without uttering a single word. She was certain he didn't mean it and just needed someone patient and caring enough to get him to open up, but she could no longer deny that her crush had issues with socialization.

She was especially noting how he was reacting to her. Sakura recalled how envious Sasuke had looked when she showed him up on the tree-climbing exercise and she'd felt a bit guilty that she'd done better than he had. But now she could see a hint of disgust in his eyes every day when she started to get tired as if he couldn't stand to see how weak she was. It made her want to try harder, but the look hadn't lifted in the slightest.

That morning, Naruto had noticed it and gotten into a fight with Sasuke. She hadn't been close enough to hear what Sasuke had said, but Naruto's portion was loud enough to be heard at the other end of the bridge. Naruto had apparently tried to come to her defense and Sasuke had said something that set him off and forced Kakashi-sensei to break the two up.

She felt grateful to Naruto for defending her, but she was also certain that Sasuke had good reason for how he felt. She needed to figure out what she had to do to become worthy of his affections without overshadowing him needlessly.

"Okay!" the voice of Tazuna called out across the bridge, breaking into Sakura's thoughts. "Break's over! Everyone back to work!"

* * *

><p><strong>-Konohagakure: Naruto's apartment-<strong>

Hinata moaned to herself as she stepped out of Naruto's shower. She felt much better after having washed off the sweat she'd been nearly caked in and the hot water of the shower had felt good on her sore aching muscles.

After doing a few light stretches so her muscles wouldn't stiffen up later, she wrapped a towel around herself and went to Naruto's room to grab a spare set of clothes. Walking around her own home so... casually under-dressed would have been highly frowned upon and she had always wondered what it would be like to be so comfortable in one's living area that a person could walk around without having to maintain an image of perfect grooming at all times. She had to admit, it felt quite good. The fantasies of Naruto coming back early and finding her in just a towel weren't bad either.

Blushing at that last thought, she entered Naruto's room to the delight of Himawari.

"Hello Hinata-sama!" the flower greeted. "I heard you in the shower. Did you train hard today?"

Hinata returned the greeting with a happy nod and a giggle, remembering a previous discussion with the cheerful plant where she had learned that the flower had no real concept of bathing. Which had led to the discovery that Himawari had no true concept of _smell_ either. The flower knew what it was and how it worked, but neither she nor any other plant possessed an equivalent sense that could be used for reference. It was truly mind-boggling to think about.

The Hyuga heiress went over to Naruto's closet and grabbed a spare jacket from where it hung between some of Naruto's spare orange jackets. Unfortunately the pants that hung with it decided to slide off the hangar and disrupt one of the boxes on the floor of the closet, knocking the lid off.

She bent over to pick up her pants and saw that the box contained several volumes of manga. She'd never be allowed to read something so... common in the Hyuga compound, and she wondered just what it was that the elders disliked about the illustrated books that caused them to be banned from the household. Of course, it would be rude to go through something so personal of Naruto's. On the other hand, maybe his selection of manga would give her some insight into what kind of girl would attract his attention so she could better get him to notice her once he got back...

Hinata let curiosity get the better of her and picked one of the manga up so she could look at the cover. And immediately blushed.

_'Wow... do girls really wear things like that?'_ she thought at seeing the image on the cover, only to think of some of the things her newest friend had in _her_ closet and immediately revise the mental question. _'At least girls other than Ino?'_

* * *

><p><strong>-Nami no Kuni: Tsunami's house-<strong>

Naruto was in a foul mood at the moment. The reason was because he'd gotten in yet another argument with Sasuke. Apparently it wasn't enough for the teme to insult him at every turn, because now he was starting in on Sakura-chan just when she was getting serious in her training!

That morning the teme had pretty much called Sakura's desire to improve worthless, but because he'd done it just quiet enough that only Naruto heard him the teme got off free and clear. And then he'd gone and done it _again_ on the way back from the bridge. Kakashi-sensei'd needed both hands to keep Naruto from caving the smug bastard's face in.

And then he'd had to sit through a lecture from Kakashi-sensei about controlling his temper and not attacking teammates. Certainly not on a mission where mortal combat with enemy forces could theoretically happen at any moment. Yes, even if they said things like that about the person you had a crush on.

Honestly, even Naruto sometimes wondered why he was attracted to Sakura. Sure Sakura was pretty, but so was every other girl in his class at the academy. Heck, in Naruto's opinion there wasn't a single one who wasn't at least a seven on a one to ten scale in regards to physical appearance despite the fact that they were still early in their development, including that shy girl with the pale eyes and the perpetual fever (Naruto wasn't going to judge a ninja on health issues after seeing He-With-The-Eternal-Cough). However, Sakura also hit him and berated him fairly regularly which he got more than enough of from the rest of the village. She also engaged in Sasuke-fan-girling which was one of his all-time despised activities, right behind betrayal of comrades, torturing baby animals, and defacing ramen (and his sensei seemed bound and determined to add 'acting like Kakashi-sensei' to that list).

Maybe it was how she'd gone from the bottom of the social pecking order to the top. Maybe it was how she wasn't afraid to speak her mind about things. Maybe it was how she was so intelligent about everything he found difficult. Maybe it was her rare smile that seemed to light up everything around her. Maybe it was her adorably exotic hair color. Maybe...

..._maybe_ he should learn to start knocking on the door before entering the bathing area.

Naruto thanked his lucky stars and Inari-sama, the god of all-things-ramen (Naruto didn't hold the misconception of Inari-sama being the god of rice against the rest of the world), that Sakura had finished wrapping herself in a towel this time and was facing the door. Sure, the memory of her drying off while facing away from him was a pleasant one, but the well-deserved (and Naruto wasn't about to pretend otherwise since he'd had ample opportunity to avert his bug-eyed stare) beating afterwards was _not_. Maybe she'd take pity on him and let him off with just a good wallop.

"Oh," Sakura said in a casual tone. "Hey Naruto. Shower's free if you want it."

Or maybe she'd let him go completely?

"...Who are you and what have you done with Sakura-chan?" he asked in bewilderment. Only to recoil a bit as she whacked him on the head. It hurt a little, but compared to her usual strikes it was a love-tap. She hadn't even put any chakra behind it.

"Don't start with me right now, baka," Sakura glared halfheartedly. "I'm too tired from today."

"Ah... right," he hedged uncertainly. "Sorry."

"Thanks for defending me today against Sasuke-kun though," Sakura added with a tired smile. "It was... sweet. Stupid, but sweet."

"Hey, Sakura, maybe after we've finished the mission, I could take you out on a date to celebrate!" Naruto smiled.

Sakura sighed heavily and Naruto cringed slightly out of reflex. "Naruto, I'm not going out with you."

Naruto blinked as Sakura walked off. _Without_ hitting him. Either this was a dream, and a pretty sucky one since she hadn't even hintingly suggested skipping the date in favor of post-date activities, or she was finally starting to warm up to him.

"Ow!" Naruto yelped. The pain from pinching himself a little too hard handily ruled out the 'dream' scenario. Which meant Sakura was starting to warm up to him. He'd been waiting for this for so long that... that...

_'...I have __**no**__ idea what to do now...'_ he realized.

* * *

><p><strong>-In front of Tsunami's house-<strong>

"Mind if I join you Kakashi-san?" a voice interjected into the jonin's thoughts regarding his dysfunctional team.

"Not at all, Kaiza-san," Kakashi responded easily. His musings regarding his idiotic little genin would keep for the moment.

The masked jonin watched as the one-armed fisherman took a seat next to him, his movements still not having completely adjusted to the loss of his limb. In all honesty, Kakashi respected the man quite a bit. He had the courage to stand up to a man of Gato's influence and his armed flunkies despite what it could cost him. He also was apparently a strong enough swimmer, prior to losing his arm, to swim against a flood current and repair a broken village dam single-handedly. Such a feat was something that Kakashi was certain his battle-trained genin, at least two of which could reliably take Kaiza in a fight if chakra use was allowed, would not have been even remotely capable of. Heck, Kakashi had to admit that he himself might have had trouble pulling that off with full use of his chakra and he knew that he could subdue Kaiza in any form of combat before the man would know what was happening.

"Thanks," Kaiza returned as he sat next to Kakashi. "I never properly thanked you for looking after my father-in-law, did I? I really appreciate it, even if the guy is a handful at times."

"I've had worse," Kakashi smiled back easily. "Besides, I don't think I'd have ever heard the end of it if I'd ordered my team back to Konoha. I'm pretty sure Naruto at least would have found a way to make sure I heard his complaints day in and day out even if I deliberately made myself go deaf."

Kaiza snorted in laughter at that. "He does know how to make himself heard, doesn't he? Though I'm glad for what he's done with Inari. I was worried that Inari was going to completely close off from anyone outside the family. He's the kind of kid who takes things hard, so it's good to have him around someone so upbeat."

"I take it the plant training isn't hurting either?" Kakashi asked innocently.

"Hah!" Kaiza barked. "Kid thinks it's a genuine super-power he's learning! But, no, it's not hurting at all. I think it's doing him a lot of good to learn that he can become strong on his own merit rather than just rely on everyone else to be strong all the time."

"One of the most important lessons for anyone to learn," Kakashi agreed. "Now, why did you really come out here?"

"Can't get anything past you, can I? Well, it's clear to me that you have some sort of plan regarding Gato," Kaiza said low enough that anyone not sitting next to them would be incapable of overhearing. "And I had a few ideas that you might be interested in..."

* * *

><p><strong>-A few days later: Nami no Kuni-<strong>

Sasuke scowled at the mist that permeated the bridge. Kakashi-sensei and Tazuna had told the workers to take the day off since it was apparently when Gato was intending to make his move and they wanted to keep the body count down.

Personally, he couldn't care less what happened to them. They weren't part of his current mission or his ultimate life goal and thus unimportant. Heck, this whole mission was getting worse by the day. At first it had seemed like it might be a good test of his skills and growth with the appearance by strong opponents that he could prove his strength against and then his worth for more advanced training while the dead weight got left behind.

Then those... _things_ had shown up and completely destroyed the way things were supposed to work. Now their sensei was making unorthodox deals with enemy ninja, the dobe was entertaining delusions of being his equal in worth with those ridiculous plants, and even the worthless fangirl seemed to believe she could suddenly acquire value outside of the book smarts that were her only talent.

_He_ was the elite. _He_ was the one who everyone was supposed to rely on to pull through when things got rough. His teammates should have been content to support _him_ from the shadows than dare to think they could stand _beside_ him as equals. _He_ led. _They_ followed. That was how things were _supposed_ to work. And Kakashi was not supposed to take _their_ side!

(flashback)

"Sasuke," Kakashi said to his glowering student after Naruto and Sakura had gone inside the house, "I don't know what it is that you said to set Naruto off like that, but I can make some pretty good guesses. I will not require you to like your team, because heaven knows you won't always have the luxury of working with people you like, but I _will_ require you to not actively destroy the team dynamic while on a mission. I expect you to work with and support your teammates in both missions and training. If you cannot do this, then perhaps I need to look into arranging a replacement and sending you back for remedial lessons."

(end flashback)

"Well, Zabuza," he heard his sensei say casually, "shall we get on with it?"

"Of course," the chuckling missing-nin responded from the mist. "Haku. Stay back and intercept any of the brats who try to interfere."

Sasuke scowled as the masked okama nodded silently.

"Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke," Kakashi said with seriousness, "stay back and guard Tazuna."

Sasuke watched as his two teammates took up positions and rolled his eyes as he reluctantly took his own position for this... farce.

The messages that had been traded back and forth between the two groups had hashed out what amounted to a battle between Kakashi and Zabuza that seemed serious while all of their students abstained, remaining fresh for whatever treachery Gato had planned. As well as whatever other unpleasantness might show up.

In all honesty, Sasuke himself didn't feel concerned about anyone other than the missing-nin they were supposedly allied with. Those two were the only real threats.

Nonetheless, he stood his ground and calmly fulfilled the duty assigned him. He was a dutiful and proud shinobi after all. Not like the pink-headed fan-girl who was nervously scanning the area like a frightened rabbit expecting the shadows themselves to spring up threateningly. Nor was he like the dobe who was even now trying to place a bet with the okama over which of their senseis would score more hits on the other by shouting across the bridge.

It was all he could do to not slap his palm over his face when the masked okama _accepted_ the terms of the wager.

* * *

><p><strong>-Below the bridge-<strong>

Gato smiled to himself as his hired mercenaries finished tying the heavy-duty ropes to the platform that would take them up and the pulley system that made such a feat possible in the first place.

It had been a simple matter to have a few men prep Tazuna's own heavy equipment the night before for this little trick and the uncompleted end of the bridge was the last place that any of the ninja would expect him to appear from, making it perfect. He'd stay behind, but it was a minor vice of his that he liked to see the spirits of those who opposed him being utterly crushed in person.

There really was nothing else quite like it.

Neither he nor any of his flunkies spotted the shapes moving in the water around the boat.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Be here next time for **Tall, Dark, and Dead**. It's pretty much going to be one long zombie fight, with lots of problems, new plants, new zombies (at least ones not seen in this fic so far on both counts), and the end of the Wave mission. Promise.

The 'okama' slur used by Sasuke is a japanese word that many may not be familiar with. The _nicest_ translation I know of is basically 'fem-boy'.

I've always wondered a bit as to how Gato got up onto the far end of the humongous-ass bridge without any of the ninja noticing him, much less his small army of mercenaries. My interpretation? He used Tazuna's heavy equipment to lift himself and his thugs up from the water.

Heavily-double-secret-censored is the kind of profanity that even liberal parents might lynch you for if you uttered it within earshot of anyone under the age of 30. And, yes, I did make that up just in case anyone thought I was being serious.

Naruto's opinion that all of the girls in his class were/are pretty is my personal shot at the numerous authors who essentially reduce Naruto's taking an interest in someone other than Sakura as "Wow, she's pretty. OMG I thought of she-who-is-not-Sakura as pretty! I must love her!" Sometimes in about as many words. That's not happening here. Naruto has seen Hinata. He knows who she is (if not her name). He thinks she's pretty. He thinks _lots _of girls who aren't Sakura are pretty. I'm pretty sure Naruto never went through the whole 'girls have cooties' phase most young boys have. Not that this improved his social life any...

What is an F-Rank jutsu (considering I made the term up to my knowledge)? An F-Rank is the absolute lowest rank of any jutsu in the ninja world. Period. Pretty much the only jutsu that are on this level are things like basic chakra molding. Even academy-taught jutsu are E-Ranked. The leaf exercise from Naruto canon could be classified as an E-Rank control exercise. F-Rank jutsu are things that are so simple and fundamental to the ninja way of life that only breathing could be considered lower on the scale of difficulty. But they're still not innate to those that know them. All ninja had a point in their lives when they struggled to mold chakra at all, they just tend to be well past this point when they graduate. To give you a point of comparison, an F-Rank taijutsu maneuver would be something like _walking_ or _running_.

* * *

><p><strong>Non-Canon jutsu introduced in this chapter:<strong>

None this time. Sorry.

* * *

><p><strong>Challenge:<strong>

**Don't Plant on the Grass** - During a normal daytime level do not plant anything on the lawn itself except for Flower Pots. (All other plants must be planted in the Flower Pots)

* * *

><p>And my parting shot for the day:<p>

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

- James D. Nicoll


End file.
